A number of deaths are attributed to the current Arctic Vortex in the U.S. East Midwest, and South. Some areas have suppressed their numbers for political, and insurance reasons as was done during "Sandy". So we don't really know for sure. I've read as few as 9, and as many as 60.
Depends on what local politicians are calling "direct related".
Homeless deaths due to the cold are apparently not being counted in some areas because the dead have no identification. I would have been among the uncounted eight or so years ago. I sometimes muse that like a soldier I lived, and slept in the rain sleet, and snow.
I've slept in the snow.
It was not my choice. Though you can survive if you know how. This comes back to me because I just watched a film about the first Korean War. The Second War future historians will say has already started. In the film there were scenes of U.N. troops mostly American Marines sleeping in below zero blizzards during the Chosin battle, and terrible withdrawal.
I sat at my computer watching those guys, and thought, "...crap I did that,...I'm 'still' doing that".
My combat vet late brother John when he learned I had been homeless said to me, "...you're a veteran now." Because like him I had spent a year in constant danger of injury or actual death. Also like him I wasn't thinking about it while it was happening. One just stays focused on staying alive as my brother did.
So this time I weathered deep cold, and a great blizzard in a warm tidy home. Lately even with hot food. However I'm still outside still sleeping in the rain still crouched in an alley alcove against the wind, and snow.
Like soldiers who never really come home neither have I. I'm still facing the ice.
2 comments:
Insurance has long been a source of lies. When the Titanic sank, they suppressed the fact that the ship broke in half, as was later accurately depicted in Jim Cameron’s film.
I hate capitalism. It’s the cause of all this, along with the callous indifference to the suffering of others that it fosters.
Yesterday I read an article suggesting how a group of primates can successfully deal with viciously domineering exploiters:
http://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/how-to-fix-society-one-baboon-group-at-a-time
A troupe of baboons has chanced to lose its dominant males and turned into a peace-loving hippie commune. Here’s the money quote:
“Sapolsky was eager to learn how the troop, which now seemed far too peace-and-love oriented to defend itself, had managed to avoid being taken over. Then, one day, a violent, dominant male fell upon them and attempted to subjugate the troop to his rule. The troop instantly turned on him and literally tore him limb from limb. When Sapolsky went out to study the troop the next day, the baboons were quietly grooming each other as usual, and on the ground beside them was the severed face of the would-be usurper. The group managed to avoid a return to violence by reserving all their aggression for the males who occasionally tried to fill the power vacuum.”
There might be more peaceful solutions, but this one seems to work.
Z
In Japan small boys who start to show signs that they becoming bullies are treated for emotional disability...which the certainly have. They are removed from the other children.
Here they're egged on by other alpha boys, and encouraged by their fathers overtly, and the school system covertly. Covertly by not interceding against the violent behavior.
We have the ability to curb our worse instincts, and slowly are.
Only now are we acknowledging that these are counter productive behaviors. That is bad for business. Much as official racism is more or less now seen the same way. Mostly by business, and the military. Politics is still lagging behind since appealing to the worst instincts still pays off very well.
The point is we 'know' this is a bad idea now.
This notion that alpha male behavior is destructive is spreading widely. The hysteria against male sexual harassment of women a somewhat flawed example. Hysteria is never a good idea. Like racism bullying, and bigotry have entered the niche of "bad manners".
This took 20,000 years to slowly happen, and is amazing social progress.
Again democratic political progress in this matter is lagging behind. If we have the time I'd say another few to several generations for it to catch up.
If our interconnected world culture falls before then,...back to square one. The social evolutionary odometer goes back 20,000+ years.
At least for human apes.
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