9/30/2024

Dear Friend, JRB,

            I’ve been looking at videos & photos of Asheville, NC & its environs. I am so grateful that my 90-year-old friend, Harriet, no longer lives in there. Her daughter & grandkids would be worried sick if she were, because it seems no one has power or cell service.

Gov Roy Cooper’s comment, “this is an unprecedented tragedy that requires an unprecedented response” seems to be spot on! I’m sure you will do all you can to get people some help, but I’m worried that as FEMA’s Deanne Criswell says it’s going to be “a really complicated recovery.”  

            The victims who appear on various news segments seem stunned, saying they’ve never seen anything like it. I wish I could claim that Hurricane Helene will enlighten the climate change deniers & get everyone on board for the need for some major lifestyle changes. Sadly, Project 2025 refers to the NOAA, as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” So, if 45 gets re-elected, the deniers’ voices will be amplified. That will be bad.

            Please give a shout out to folks like Dave Quinn, owner of the Pisgah Brewing Company, who is distributing drinking water from the two 4,000-gallon tanks of clean water he keeps in reserve at the brewery.

            I encourage you to take a look at the series of articles in RFA describing people involved in fighting the junta in Burma. Yesterday’s piece was about Cobra Column commander, Saw Kaw (SK), who leads “an unusual joint effort of seasoned fighters from ethnic armies & young, largely Burman revolutionaries who no longer wish to be governed by the junta. It is an NUG force, not a KNU one.” His base is in the vicinity of Lay Kay Kaw, a city which used to be known as a “peace town” due to the temporary detente between the military & rebel Karen forces but is now home to a training camp for the PDF. SK yearns for the end of the war, when he can hug his mom, wife & daughters & sing the songs he learned in church. May it happen soon.

            BYBS,