KARMA, or, HOW TO DO IT RIGHT
The storm that hit La Plata, Maryland the other night was an F5 "finger of God" tornado. The damage is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, two people are dead, dozens more are injured -- this is the kind of thing you expect to see following a hurricane, which doesn't tend to happen this far north.

While the governor and everybody's been touring the destruction and promising to seek designation as a federal disaster area, though, a bunch of guys have come over from the neighboring Amish community and started rebuilding. The news cameras caught them -- from a more or less respectful distance, thank goodness -- putting a roof back on a medical center. (I don't have a link, because obviously the Amish aren't going to go seeking the attention of the press. Or keeping websites. You know.)

That, my friends, is the way to behave. You may disagree at a basic, fundamental level with everything your neighbor is and does and stands for. That right is yours, as a human being. But when your neighbor takes a sock in the jaw, when much of what he has is destroyed and he's reeling with pain and shock and loss, what do you do?

Do you dance in the streets and celebrate his misfortune?

No. You pack your things in a bag and go over and give him a hand. That, of course, is after you raise your eyes heavenward and give thanks that you were spared. That obligation is yours, if you wish to continue calling yourself a human being.