What a wonderful world....

Good morning! So here I am at 1 57 am (at least thats when i've started) writing in my blog. Thinking about it, I reckon I haven't gone to bed before 2 am for way over a month now. It seems that I have well and trully returned to my old Undergraduate habits, except back then I was a die-hard student, reading and writing essays to the silly hours of the morning. Nowadays I'm more likely to be found e-mailing, blogging or reading a Bill Bryson book I've already read a good 3 or 4 times but love so, so much that I'm devouring it again. Anyway random train of thought for you there.

To get back to this particular post I've been immersing myself in newspapers of late, picking my way through endless numbers of articles, columns, editorials, reporters blogs, and photos of the horrific events in New Orleans. And I must say that I sit open mouthed when considering it all. On the one hand the tragedy is simply staggering on its scale. An American commentator was discussing the situation on the BBC news yesterday and he put the crisis in a British perspective, comparing New Orleans with Manchester in its size for example, and this just put the Hurricane's devastation in perspective.

On the other hand though its the way the crisis has been handled thats really struck me. Now please don't misunderstand me here - if Britain was ever to face this kind of a disaster I am under no illusion that we, or infact the Government, would be any better placed to handle the situation (The Great Irish Famine being a good historical example of such a poorly handled crisis). But as part of a generation that has grown up looking to America as almost the 'Golden' nation its shocking to see one of its great cities almost disintegrate into chaos.

I hope and pray that the situation returns to some form of normality soon. Oh and if you are British and are feeling a tad helpless the British Red Cross is taking donations to pass on to the American Red Cross.

All of this news though has made me feel a tad low, and its this that brings me to the title of my post. I've been listening to a Louis Armstrong cd today and it has one of my favourite songs on it named 'What A Wonderful World' and it has just helped me to appreciate that this world we live in, though filled with tragedy, is a wonderful world and one that we should be immensly thankful for.