But safety is an unusual need in that it is based almost entirely upon an illusion. As humans, we are blessed (and cursed) with the knowledge that death is inevitable and that it could happen at any time. At best, safety is relative, at worst it is nonexistent and just a figment of our overactive imaginations.

The simple truth is that we are never safe. Freak accidents, diseases and any number of other deadly incidents can take place at any given time. Even if we lock ourselves away in a metal room and remove all foreseeable hazards, death and injury can find us. Deep down we know that.

If true safety were a requirement of our happiness, humans would be driven mad in frenzied attempts to mitigate every possible hazard, knowing that it is all a futile effort. As long as our mortality can not be escaped, safety can not be achieved.

Yet, most people, feel safe when they sleep at night. Though literally anything can happen while they slumber, they rest assured that they will wake up the next morning in much the same condition that they went to bed.

Our minds, over the years, have trained themselves to ignore the millions of risks we face, responding only to the most immediate and probable dangers we face. Much of this is self preservation, enabling us to spend our energy on the things that are most likely to hurt us, but much of it is also self deception, allowing us to turn a blind eye to less visible risks.

This has resulted in a warped sense of safety. The dangers we face every day have become skewed and warped by a combination of convenience, media hype and misinformation. Whether the dangers are bad drivers, terrorists, heart disease or bird flu, we know we can't possibly protect against all of the hazards we face, so we focus on the ones that make us feel the most safe, not necessarily the ones that pose the greatest risk.

That is the crux of the safety problem. Since safety is an illusion, so are many of the dangers. What makes us feel safe is often very different from what actually improves our chances of survival. What helps us sleep at night is rarely what helps us wake up in the morning.

This need for safety has become our Achilles heel. Our mortality has become our mortal weakness. We know neither safety nor happiness so long as we give in to illusions of safety and of danger. We are never as safe as we feel we need to be, nor are we in as grave of danger as we often think we are.

These notions, however, are lost on us as safety is a feeling and it knows no intellect. There is no rationalizing with the idea of safety or the people that feel they do not have it. Once lost, the quest for the feeling of safety is all-consuming, usually overpowering better forms of judgment and pushing us down paths we would never otherwise take.

The time has come to breathe. To realize that, while this need for safety that drives us is a positive thing, it is no being used to drive us down paths we need not tread. Safety has never been anything but an illusion and that lack of grounding is used against us every day of our lives by our governments, our media, our businesses and even others on the street.

The truth is that safety comes from within. You can not buy it, you can not vote for it and there is no knowledge that mysteriously grants it. Safety comes from within ourselves and our loved ones. It's about a place in your room that makes you feel safe, about being warm in the arms of a loved one, about finding the one thing that reminds you of safer times.

Safety is an illusion and it is a necessary one. However, we have to stop looking outside of ourselves to find it. Any illusion the world can give us can also be found within. If we make our own illusions, we can use them to our advantage. If we let others make our illusions, they can use them to their advantage.

It takes inner strength to do this, to look within for answers that do not exist, But that strength is what it truly takes to feel safe in such a crazy world.

However, instead of being treated to an impromptu concert from a bad techno band, we're being startled awake by the car alarm on an late model Honda parked across the street.

This has lead to an inevitable conclusion. If you have and use an audible car alarm on your car or truck, you fit into one of three categories: Idiot, jackass or both.

Whether you think the car alarm is an effective theft deterrent or simply don't care that they are more annoying than a screaming baby in a quiet restaurant, you're out of touch with reality.

The Problem with Car Alarms

The biggest problem with car alarms is that they do nothing to reduce theft. A 1997 study by the insurance industry looked at the claims of over 73 million cars and found that the net effect of audible car alarms was zero.

The reason is two fold. First, no one connects a car alarm with a theft in progress. We're so used to alarms going off for no reason at tall that almost no one takes action when they hear an alarm. Generally, the only times the police are called are when the car alarm has been going on so long that residents wish it would be stolen, in the form of a police impound, or at least the owner be ticketed.

Second, professional thieves, who steal the bulk of cars, can disable an audible alarm in almost no time at all. Though it might be an obstacle to joyriders, the professionals simply do not care.

But this ineffective security comes at a very high price. Car alarms are the number one noise complaint in most cities, including New York, and can result in fines, impounding and other actions. In San Francisco, police are authorized to cut battery cables on a vehicle with a car alarm, New York has impounded some 7000 vehicles for excessive noise and the list of potential repercussions goes on.

The Human Side

Of course, these problems only account for issues faced by car owners. The pubic at large has even more issues to deal with.

Car alarms, and other loud noises, have been related to high blood pressure, stress, sleeplessness, breakdown in civility and countless other physiological and sociological ills.

Some studies have shown that prolonged loud noises can hinder concentration, learning and even reading ability in children. It can also make them less attentive in class and, in some cases, more prone to be disruptive.

To date, no study has found positive benefits to exposure to loud noises. The mind, body and community all suffers when subjected to ongoing high volumes of noise.

Alternatives

This is not to say that you can't take security precautions to protect your vehicle, just that you shouldn't use ineffective, noisy and annoying audible alarms. There are plenty of more effective and less annoying methods to protect your property.

• Immobilizers: Immobilzers are products which prevent cars from being started without the proper key. They work by planting a microchip into the key and, without said chip in the ignition, the car will fail to start. This is dubbed the most effective anti-theft tool and is standard on all Ford and most GM vehicles.
• Steering Wheel/Brake Locks: Though steering wheel locks, such as "The Club", can be somewhat easily beaten by professional thieves, others are more difficult and brake locks, which prevent a thief from depressing the brake and getting the vehicle out of park are considered very effective.
• Silent Pages: Unlike audible alarms, which are easily disabled, do not attract attention and may not alert the owner effectively, silent pagers alert the owner without sounding an audible alarm, are less likely to be disabled and can actually help the owner respond in an effective way.

Conclusions

In the end, there is no reason to use an audible car alarm, let alone buy one. If you're looking into effective ways to protect your investment, save your money for something that does more than just annoy your neighbors.

It's time for the car alarm to be put to bed, so the rest of us can do the same.

As we moved along
two lives in parallel
we swapped stories on quiet nights
and bared ourselves like never before
we marched forward
pushing through tragedy and triumph
with a constant eye to the path beyond
aching for what awaited through the howling trees

Though we picked up fellow travelers
and bonded with other souls
the face beyond the trees haunted us both
But as two lives in parallel
doomed never to meet
we made our own happiness
and found our own dreams
while waiting for the two paths to meet

Yet, even as we wished on every star
for our roads to intersect
we knew we could be in the arms of another
unable to share the desired embrace
Still, no cruel twist of fate
could keep our two souls apart
and whether we meet as friends or lovers
neither shall endure a broken heart

So as we stand here silently
two faces between the trees
let's raise our glass
to toast the stars
and give thanks to friends and lovers
For no matter which role you play
the result will be the same
two hearts will be light
at least for one day

Now you've moved on
following the scent of loneliness
down a trail of desperation
to another victim
one who smiles unaware
just like I did in the months before

But time will be kind to me
as it is to most gentle souls
though we break like twigs
in the howling winds of today
the rains of tomorrow make us strong
and let us grow into a forest that can never be broken

You will remain hollow, empty and weak
even as I grow stronger
and some day love will find you
following the scent of your loneliness
and it will break you with ease
a rotten tree falling to a draft

So even as I cry for you
and nurse my broken heart
I offer no words of anger
nor carry any ill desires
For your fate is your own
and destiny spites you enough
while I'll miss you on lonely nights
I can not hate what I pity so much
nor condem that which has condemned itself

Basically, we're lost travelers, constantly at the mercy of the various perils of the world around us, wondering from path to path, decision to decision, never knowing if we're going to get where we think we're headed.

We make the decisions the best we can, judging all of the variables we can see, but never really knowing what lies beyond the next bend. It's a frightening prospect and one that has broken many souls. We live in fear and uncertainty and that is our permanent state.

Yet, we press on. The air often grows cold and the nights are long, but we press on. Not because we want to or because it's easy, but because we have to. There is no going back, there is no alternative.

But if we press through these tough times, if we keep ourselves warm on the long cold nights and survive the hardships that nip at us every step of the way, we are rewarded. No path can stay uphill forever and no trail can remain rugged for all of time.

History is paved on the backs of the souls who quit, those that couldn't push on or find the new path. However, it's written about those who do, the ones that break through and find something worthwhile at the end.

So, if a path is a dead end or taking you a wrong direction, don't hesitate to take another one. Even though you don't know where it leads, it can hardly lead you more astray. But most of all, keep yourself warm when the nights get cold and don't let the perils of the forest get to you. Though they might alter your course, if you can keep pushing past the difficulties, greater things await.

For life is a game for those that don't give up. Those who go just a little bit further see things until their end and push on through hardships. Victory in life isn't determined by money, wealth or fame, but by having enjoyed and cherished the human experiences.

Sadly, it's hard to cherish life while you're watching it pass you by. That is why we must keep moving and constantly progressing. Even if we're not the first, we can still be the happiest.

For the struggles we face along these paths make the triumph of beating them that much greater and they offer wisdom which can help us with the trails we choose to follow in the future.

Wisdom, which can bring even greater rewards.

While everyone makes mistakes and, on a planet with six billion people, we're going to adversely affect those around us, some among us take it to a whole new level. They are either so negligent, or even malicious, that their acts are a conscious disregard for others. This goes beyond a lack of compassion or the absence of empathy and shuns all convictions and morals aside.

When you see these people, take a moment to look into their eyes. You'll see something truly unique. When you stare down into the pit of their souls, you'll see that they believe they're better than you. They seem themselves as a superior life form and yourself, along with those around you, are just insects waiting to be stomped.

With this form of imagined superiority comes a sense of entitlement, and that is where things go wrong. These people not only believe that they are better than the world, but that the world owes them something. Be it the color of their skin, the way they grew up, the money in their pocket or just something inside them, they feel that they are entitled to better treatment and they will take it if necessary.

That sense of entitlement is what leads to their downfall. Nature, as luck would have it, doesn't possess and entitlement clause. Those who think that they are owed something might be able to take it from time to time, but will never really be able to possess it. Those who believe they deserve something, for no other reason than who they are, are incapable of working for it and earning it.

And in there lies the bitter truth. All men are created equal, but they don't always stay that way. Some of us work hard, achieve great things and make something of our lives. Those who do that, for the most part at least, learn humility and invest themselves emotionally into ideas of justice and equality.

Others feel entitled; they do nothing, achieve nothing and, instead, leech off society. These are the ones who feel superior, the ones who achieve the least, offer nothing to the world and, instead, only flex their supposed superiority by taking that which does not belong to them.

In the end, it's their very sense of superiority that prevents them, not just from becoming better people, but from becoming anything at all. They can't plow the fields in the kingdom they believe themselves to rule, thus, they never make anything grow.

Their accomplishments are fantasies and society, let alone nature, will not favor these fools. They are doomed by their own delusions and will feel the wrath soon.

So when wronged in such a manner, try to let it go. If it was an honest mistake, it will not be repeated and, if it's someone taking what does not belong to them through a feeling of entitlement, they will feel their own demise soon enough.

For nature is cruel to those who don't earn their keep and nothing you can do will ever be able to compete with the very forces that keep evolution going.

Now that promise is just one of the many broken ones New Orleans is trying to piece together. Much like the levees that could withstand a category three hurricane, the buses that never came, the government loans cut short and the insurance money that, for many, will never come, the promise of sweeping recovery and massive government aid is just a ghost that continues to haunt the city as it tries to move on.

Worse still, many are debating whether or not the city should be rebuilt at all and, if it is, whether any Federal money should be spent on it. In their minds, the city invited trouble by existing below sea level. After all, they say, this type of disaster was inevitable and will just happen again, perhaps worse, if it's rebuilt. They've already taken to calling New Orleans "America's Atlantis" and have written off the city as a footnote in history.

New Orleans, however, is not dead, but it is living off of a steady diet of MREs and broken promises. Promises fed by the government, at all levels, and promises that we now need to collect on, one way or another if we hope to survive.

Abandonment

Many wonder aloud whether or not the city is worth being rebuilt. It's a well known fact that the city is slowly sinking, that nature is quickly trying to turn New Orleans into an island and that much of the city was built upon poorly engineered soil. Though other countries, such as the Netherlands, have little problem dealing with such challenges, people still say that New Orleans is doomed and that no amount of repair work is going to change that.

Furthermore, they say that what happened to the lives in New Orleans is the fault of those who made the choice to live there, not the engineers who told them that the levees were safe or the officials who were tasked with making sure the city was prepared. They want to look for any reason to avoid spending federal money on the city while dodging the guilt and shame that would come with ignoring the cries of thousands of needy people.

If one wants to skip on giving Federal aid because the disaster was "inevitable" and is likely to happen again, that's fine. But one has to apply such a policy fairly and that means not giving any funds to San Francisco when another earthquake hits, any Midwestern city that get struck by a tornado, any village along a river that gets flooded, any coastal city when a hurricane strikes, New York City or Washington D.C. when another terrorist attack hits, or any other city with a disaster that was in any way predictable and likely to be repeated.

If you think that such a policy would be cruel but that, somehow, New Orleans is an exception, you have to ask yourself why. Aren't all of the above disasters just as predictable and at least as likely as what happened to New Orleans? It is a bitter pill to swallow, but it is the cold truth.

The fact is most people who want to abandon the city, want to do so not because it's impractical to sustain it, 14 billion dollars to shore up the levees and protect the city against erosion is well within the reach of the world's wealthiest nation, but because of Katrina burnout. With the startling images off of our TVs and the memory of that dark September fading, people don't want to foot the bill for major disaster relief. The heartstrings are exhausted and the minds have long since forgotten.

In short, people just don't care anymore and the excuses for why it is ok not to care have already started. Much of the nation wants to move on and is willing to leave New Orleans behind in the process.

It makes you wonder though, exactly what country am I in?

Reasons Not to Leave

Though no city should ever have to justify its existence, New Orleans does have an easier time than most in doing so. In addition to being one of America's most unique cities, especially in terms of culture, being a famed city of both song and literature alike, being an integral part of American culture and being one of the nation's most popular tourist destinations, New Orleans has a lot to offer the country in more practical terms.

The Port of New Orleans, for example, is the world’s largest port system and the only deepwater port in the country with proximity to six “class one” railroads. New Orleans business district, known as the CBD, is one of the country's largest and was ranked by Expansion Management Magazine as being the fourth biggest "hot market" and Inc., a popular business magazine, also ranked the city itself as the eighteenth best market for doing business.

New Orleans is also critical for the production of oil and natural gas; many large oil companies have critical facilities, including refineries and pipelines, in and around the city and use New Orleans as a base for their offshore activities. The state of Louisiana, spear-headed by its New Orleans facility, produces 1.62 million barrels of oil a day and leads the country in natural gas infrastructure.

Finally, New Orleans is one of the few places in the country where manufacturing is still thriving, especially in the shipbuilding industry with large companies such as Northrup Gruman and Bollinger Shipyards employing thousands of workers.

In the end, even if you don't agree with the humanitarian reasons for investing in New Orleans, it's plain to see that it makes good financial sense. When the local economy offers so much to the state and to the country, much of it due to the city's location and history, it's easy to see why investing in it is not just the right thing to do, but also good business.

One would think that our government, if nothing else, would understand money well enough to know a good deal when it sees one.

Apparently though, that is simply not the case.

Trying to Move On

Despite the promises, the humanitarian needs and logical reasons, New Orleans is having to press on largely without federal aid. As FEMA caps aid to the city and bills to rebuild the levees and protect the city sit idle in Congress, New Orleans tries to move on. Its residents, those that have returned, have begun the process of rebuilding with their own funds, what insurance money they are able to get and what federal assistance is available.

Though jobs are plentiful in the city, there is little housing to sustain them. Most of those who are in the city now either sustained little damage to their homes or are workers here solely to do hurricane repair.

While the city is certainly alive and coming back into its own, that heartbeat is being sustained by locals, here and scattered throughout the country, that are keeping it going. We are not America's Atlantis yet but, without help from our countrymen, we very likely will be.

It's time for the government to fulfill the promises that they made, both before and after Katrina, and for all of us to band together and help rebuild one of the country's greatest and unique cities.

We can do it, the resources and plans are there to make it happen, we just have to be willing to work in order to make it happen.

This quest pushes us to do strange and desperate things. In such a commercialized society, we spend billions of dollars buying jewelry, gifts and trinkets in a bid to express our love. We spend countless paychecks, work second jobs and put untold amounts of strain on ourselves just to prove our feelings through material things.

The dirty secret of it all though is that love has no symbols. It is something that, by its very nature, defies all symbolism, especially with material possessions. The rich feel love no differently than the poor and the wealthy suffer no less from heartbreak than the destitute. Love does not discriminate on money and, in fact, tends to skip over those who rely on their finances to make their feelings known.

The only symbols of love are all elements of love, tiny glimpses into the emotion itself, mere glimmers of light reflected off of the sea of emotion. A tender kiss, a long goodbye, a heartfelt look, a content sigh and a soft touch are far more symbols of love than any diamond or flower ever could be.

For anyone with enough time or money can buy a rose or a diamond, only love can create those little moments that remind you how real it is. However, those who are living it often grow deaf to those special moments, especially as advertisers beat down their door with a more commercialized version of love.

Soon, love no longer feels like love and the quest for something timeless makes what's had look worn and gray. Because we obsess so much about expressing our love and focus so little on living it and cultivating it, it withers and dies. It's like talking to a flower while it's rotting away in darkness, love doesn't need to know how you feel, it just needs some light to let it grow.

So, if you have someone special, take some time tonight or soon, not to tell them how you feel, but to enjoy being in love, to be together, hold one another and just get caught up in the moment without a rose, a diamond or a word between you. Don't worry about what will become of it, don't even think about the future, the problems you two face or how you can express your feelings, enjoy the moment, enjoy that night.

Because, not only do we not know what tomorrow brings, but there are countless souls who can't share a moment like that. They either haven't found someone to love or are apart from them. No matter the reason though, it means you have to cherish your gift that much more and need to put that much more into it to make it grow.

Simply put, when you have a society so obsessed with money, the little things can easily be overlooked. We can not take them for granted and we must make them a priority. Because, no matter how quickly we look past them in our every day lives, the second they're gone, they leave a hole that can never truly be filled. For what was once held and ripped away can never be fully reclaimed- no matter how many times we move on, no matter how many years go by and no matter how many millions make.

It's a bitter fact of life, but one of the few that can easily be avoided if one is willing to work.

How can I show you
that you are beautiful
when you see only flaws in the diamond
and not the sparkle that it holds
You judge yourself with consequence
tearing down what nature built
and turning it into darkness cold

How can I show you
that you are beautiful
when you don't look into the mirror
save with tear-streaked eyes
How can you see yourself as I do
when you're peering through a looking glass
warped by doubt and loathing
brewed within your mind

How can I show you
that you are beautiful
when your beauty is just too much
and leaves me lost for words
choking on every thought
while trying to explain something so clear
that it is written all over your face

How can I show you
that you're beautiful
when the world is not enough
and a million voices
fail to change your song
unable to silence
the doubt that beats away

No I can't show you
that you're beautiful
No matter how hard I try
But I'll whisper it to you every night
as you drift off to sleep
and hope that one morning
you'll wake up with eyes wide open
and see yourself as I do

A perfect diamond
A stunning reflection
and a ray of sun
piercing my own darkness
taking the clouds away

Nonetheless, Intelligent Design (ID) supporters, many of them former creationists, want to make it clear that the Theory of Evolution isn't perfect and that there are alternatives to it. They want to force disclaimers in the classroom, place stickers on textbooks and make it clear to students that Darwin's theory is not beyond reproach.

While I have no problem with encouraging students to question scientific theories. I am disturbed that supporters of ID are only interested in questioning the Theory of Evolution. After all, quantum physics is a theory, relativity is a theory and most of what we now call modern science is theory.

But the reason we don't see communities rallying against the theory of relativity is that the conversion of energy into matter isn't mentioned anywhere in a religious text that I've read. No one's view of God or their faith in respect to the matter is affected by Albert Einstein's theory. So, despite the flaws and problems with that theory, science teachers can continue talking about it as if it were scientific fact, with no stickers or disclaimers required.

Clearly, this attack on the Theory of Evolution has less to do with good science and more to do with protecting God and putting him back, even if only in a small way, into our science classrooms. If ID supporters were interested in creating good scientists, they would attach their warnings and disclaimers to all theories, not just the one that they view as attacking their religious beliefs.

Thus, even if the ID theory has scientific merit, which is questionable considering the dubious scientific process most of their scientists have used, it is clearly being introduced for the wrong reasons. Furthermore, where the Theory of Evolution had to fight for decades to be accepted, with many good scientists collecting evidence to support it, ID wants to be accepted and integrated into the classroom today, with very little evidence to support it and few mainstream scientists putting stock in it.

Worse still, most of the evidence supporters of ID bring to the table is little more than holes in the existing theories. They offer no proof as to why these holes are explained by the existence of an outside intelligence and only say that they must be. But even as they assume that no other logical explanations are available, other scientists have been offering them while others have worked to test their theories.

This "no other explanation" theory seems to claim that Evolution is a done deal and that the theory is never going to be tweaked, improved or modified. However, all scientific theory is prone to that and nothing is set in stone to a true practitioner of science. After all, nearly every great scientific discovery has been either by accident or someone simply questioning the status quo and proving it wrong.

In the end, the Theory of Evolution is a testament to the very concept thereof. It is evolving rapidly and improving itself to defend against threats. It's an homage to how the scientific method is supposed to work and, though it is imperfect, so is all life and all ideas on the planet.

If supporters of ID want to help science, they should encourage questioning of all theories, not just the ones that fly against their personal and political agenda, and back up their theory with hard facts, not just conjecture and hole-punching.

Finally, they need to be aware that their theory, if it becomes accepted, will be tested and questioned much like how they have tested and questioned evolution. They need to be ready for that inevitability both personally and scientifically.

However, given the personal nature of this war to date, I doubt that they will be. After all, it's hard to be unbiased when you feel that your faith is being challenged. That rage is understandable, but it has no place in the scientific process or the science classroom.