Natural Disasters

Amid the overwhelming sadness of seeing California on fire, there are reminders that all is not lost.

Syndicated radio host Glenn Beck is now famous for pointing out that in Malibu “a handful of people who hate America...are losing their homes in a forest fire today."

After Hurricane Katrina, the President’s mother philosophized about victims in the Houston Astrodome, "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this is working very well for them."

Silver linings are everywhere in Bushland, if only we knew where to look. Consider Baghdad last spring, where a Republican Congressman found it "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summer time."

Hope and renewal are everywhere. All it takes is a perfect storm of stupidity to help us see the light.

Burritos and Botox Beat Sex

Hard to tell what cultural studies scholars will make of all this, but American web users are less interested in sex than their counterparts in Egypt, India and Turkey.

But our Internet searchers lead the world in curiosity about burritos and Iraq, and are second only to Australians in asking about botox and car bombs, according to Google data since 2004.

The Irish want to know about hangovers and Kate Moss, Italians are inquisitive about Viagra while people in Pakistan are understandably concerned about terrorism and the Taliban.

So in the long run, the average American is a lover of Mexican food who wants to erase frown lines caused by worries over the violence in the Middle East. Short term, if you check quickly, the preoccupation is with fires destroying castles in Malibu.