A brief perspective on Puerto Rico

Reuters photo

By

Don Krieger

Remember Terry Schiavo?

Terry Schiavo was a young woman who due to a stroke lived in a persistent vegetative state for 18 years.

The legal manipulations of our President and his Congress at the end of her life caused a political firestorm and disgraced the Republicans.

Terry’s feeding tube was removed for the last time on 18th March 2005.

She survived 13 days until 31st March 2005, considerably longer than that of a normally active person who had no access to water.

Reports from Puerto Rico include the frightening news that more than 40% of the people there do not have access to drinking water. How many will sicken or die of dehydration? How many will sicken or die from drinking contaminated water?

Compare the painfully slow response to this life and death crisis to 2.5 million Americans to the response to the knowledge that there were Soviet missile installations in Cuba on 15th October 1962.

By October 22, 7 days later, Tactical Air Command (TAC) had 511 fighters plus supporting tankers and reconnaissance aircraft deployed to face Cuba on a one-hour alert status.

We who lived in West Palm Beach surely remember the convoys running south down Dixie Highway (US 1) and the planes landing and taking off every 2 minutes at the airport near my school (Conniston JHS) 24/7 for days. That mobilization is a fine example of our capability for a definitive and massive response to a crisis in the Caribbean. Our incompetent and irresponsibly sluggish response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria is a fine example of the opposite.

Don Krieger

I have built satellites, worked in the operating room, been in a cult, …

I earn my living as part of a group which is trying to understand and treat head injury.

In my poetry and short blog pieces, I want to express ideas with unambiguous clarity and intensity.

I willingly sacrifice rhyme and meter, art, cleverness, elegance, and beauty for these.