Previous | Next :: After A Storm : Sea Front Havana : Cuba | September 13, 2008, 12:16 am

I dug this image out the other day when I was thinking of Ike striking Havana ...... Tonight Galveston and Houston look to be in the Hurricanes path. I was thinking of people I know who have friends and family in that part of the world ....... I hope they are all safe. Galveston is under mandatory evacuation order.... Houston the USA's 4th largest City has only gone for partial evacuation..... Even so I understand more than a million people have fled the expected destruction and flooding.

Today, I was reading the opening of a new book by a friend of mine..... Justin Webb ..... his new book is just on sale literally today..... it deals with the character of America and understanding Americans and investigates what drives the US of A ....... the section I have just read is about how the geography and climate of the United States are important in shaping the nations psyche.... how mountains and bears ..... snakes and storms ....... twisters and hurricanes...... help to forge Americans to be as they are. There can certainly be no denying that Europeans and Brits in particular have no equivalent in their lives to facing the ravages of nature in the way that people in SE Texas are facing it tonight.

"Have A Nice Day ......... Subtitled, "How I Stopped Sneering And Learned To Love America". Justin Webb attempts to get away from the anti-Americanism that infects much European thinking and instead tries to understand with his special knowledge, insight and humor perhaps the most misunderstood nation on earth. Have a Nice Day Justin Webb's book on Amazon USA or Have A Nice Day Justin Webb's book at The Guardian Bookstore UK"

I always love to speak to Justin or hear his reports and analysis on the BBC .... this book from the opening page is in his uniquely authoritative yet humorous voice..... he has a way of combining being both authoritative and being engagingly warm ...... which makes ....for me .... this book and all of his work so appealing.

Cheers Jez XX