On the eve of the Presidential election, as Americans ponder the future of the country, while candidates’ supporters prepare to campaign right at the voting places, and as poll workers prepare voting machines, we were wondering, can people be victimized by a hurricane?

It started during a television news program that detailed the current conditions of the victims of Hurricane Sandy.  Isn’t a victim more one who is the receiver of a planned, illicit or improper action?  People are victims of crime.  People are victims of corrupt investment schemes.  Natural disasters might grow from specific conditions but they aren’t planned.  They may be dangerous but they aren’t corrupt.  They are inopportune but aren’t improper.  We got to thinking that the “victims” of Hurricane Sandy aren’t victims but are casualties.  The media may want to use victim to personify the physical, mental, emotional, and financial injuries of those whose paths were crossed by the storm.  The injuries are personal.  Making the cause of them so doesn’t make them more or less severe.  Calling those whose lives have been disrupted by Sandy victims minimizes what they truly are, casualties. 

On the eve of the Presidential election, She of We starts a new job.  She had been at her old one for over a decade and was a key player for her now former employer.  She often received offers from others and one finally came that was harder to refuse than not.  The stages of employee loss are not unlike the stages of grief.  You disbelieve, you question, you bargain, you express anger, you accept.  Her boss went straight to angry and hung out there, giving up anger only when he exhibited selfishness.  “You’re disrupting my life,” he told her upon hearing the news.  Having your house underwater, on fire, in small pieces after an explosion, or just not there is a disruption of life.

On the eve of the Presidential election, instead of sportscasters pondering whether the ultimate winner of the New York City Marathon could have been caught in the last quarter mile they are instead reduced to discussing football games that were and hockey games that weren’t.  That’s because after days of interminable announcements about how good it would be for the city to hold the marathon as scheduled, somebody spoke sense to the mayor to give up the selfish view that nothing is going to stop the famed run and declare it inappropriate to hold while others in New York City have no home to go to after running their own personal marathons.

On the eve of the Presidential election, people are still calling into talk shows and posting comments on line in response to Conan O’Brien’s remarks that “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” is too mean for today’s children.  Today’s children can’t handle the cruel reality of life that while some children will grow up to be famous television personalities, some will get rocks in their treat bags of life.  It’s inappropriate that Lucy is allowed to say the things she says to Charlie Brown but it’s not too mean for television news to show over a hundred houses burn to the ground where children once lived.  The cruel reality is that television networks see the potential for huge ratings and awards of excellence for their stark presentation of a natural disaster.

On the eve of the Presidential election, millions of dollars are still being spent on television, radio, electronic, print, and direct mail advertising.  Candidates selfishly tell us lies about their opponents and themselves while being inappropriately excluded from the prohibition against automated phone sales.  It’s mean that they would rather continue to spend the money on telling us how much we will be victimized by their opponents instead of spending it on reducing the real suffering from the cruelty of life that Sandy wrought.  Just think each time you see or hear a political ad today about how much good could have been done had that money been donated to the millions whose lives have been disrupted. 

We don’t want to be mean about it.  We’re just saying is that what you really meant to say?

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?