Perspective

We're mostly back after the mess that Hurricane Wilma brought us. Law office downstairs lost some big windows, and many of us are without power at home, but no big issues. A handful of people are dead among the millions in South Florida, mostly from their own stupid doings (although certainly a few are tragic cases, particularly old folks). If you consider how many people die in metro South Florida in a normal week in car accidents and nightclub idiocy, the average deaths-per-day probably dropped during Wilma.

I was listening to the radio the day after, as the wind died down and we all began to check our roofs and such. A woman was talking on the phone to the station, complaining about her supposed losses.

"Well, the wind blew our trampoline into our lake. I wonder who is responsible for getting it out?"

I can't help but think.... Katrina, Hugo, Mitch... Andrew... all of the serious losses of life and property in the last few years, and this woman is a) worried about a trampoline and b) thinks it's the local government's job to fish it out for her.

Misplaced American values, again, as a friend in New York commented.

Our creative director, Bryan Cooper, had an even better one. Seems a bunch of ridiculously rich people managed to close off a section of eastern Miami near Coral Gables, creating a gated enclave right on a beach he used to frequent as a kid growing up here.

So, the gazillionaires, with their gated community, were the first to call the city of Miami after the storm. Trees fell down all around their boxy McMansion homes. No one could get their huge SUVs out. Help us, they cried.

City of Miami: Drop dead, rich guys. You closed off that neighborhood. You gated it. You own it. Cut away your own trees. (Cue laughter)

Seriously, we're fine and back on the job. More soon.