Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"I may be biased, but it is apparent that technology has played a tremendous role in the recovery from this disaster. Every site I go to has donation links for recovery organizations. Millions of dollars are being donated in such a way. ...The missing persons databases have reunited thousands with families and loved ones, reunited guardians with pets. People have been able to load updated satellite maps and view the flooding, or lack thereof, where their homes are located. In an area where cell phones were down, people were still able to send text messages and communicate their whereabouts to the people they loved. Those displaced are able to get much needed prescriptions filled because of a national network of drug stores who have their information in databases. Real time updates have been made available to all of us. Could we even imagine this tragedy without these vital tools?" -- Daniel Gifford, 2005-09-19

For the last three mornings, one of the dreams that has woken me each morning involved hearing Big Ben.

I don't even know what Big Ben sounds like in real life; if I've ever heard it firsthand, it was as a toddler too young to remember. (I may have heard it in the background of a television show, but if so it didn't manage to stick in my conscious memory.) And at least two of the dreams didn't even take place in London -- the mismatch of detail from "knowing" that the bell I was hearing was in the wrong city for the rest of the dream was what woke me. (One dream may or may not have taken place there; I don't remember enough of it before the waking moment to say one way or the other.)