typhoon warning

so currently its 1am on a tuesday night here in nagoya and were in a typhoon warning right now. apparently its not going to hit nagoya, just kyushu and hokkaido, but theres still some pretty good howling wind outside right now. theres actually been a few typhoon warnings up to this point but nothing has hit yet...this one will hit in the lowest sense of the word, just some strong wind and rain and thats all. apparently last year nagoya got a few typhoons, one or two closed the schools for a day. id like to get a typhoon so i could get a day off work.

speaking of typhoon/hurricanes, i pretty much only watch a few tv shows over here: sportscenter, the simpsons, 24, trailor park boys, and cnn. and ive been watching a ton of cnn the past week about the disaster that has befallen the gulf coast of the united states. tragedy to say the least...but i heard one tv commentator say that when a natural disaster strikes then the fabric of a nation is exposed to the general public for all to see. so if anybody ever thought that the united states (or any western nation) was free of problems of race and class, or that poverty had been close to elimated in first world countries because the "economy" was sound, then this should be an eye opener for them. im not really interested in blaming the government for a bad response, its pretty obvious they blew it and they even admit it at this point. im interested in how many people become aware of some significant problems that may have been under the nose of the national media but have been brought to the surface (pardon the pun) by a hurricane and a flood.