Not in Control:

It turns out that the 17,000 Christmas lights that Alek Komarnitsky supposedly placed under the control of Internet visitors was a hoax. The many thousands who went to his site thought they were turning the lights on and off, but they weren't. Our wealth and technology and military power and physical comforts provide us with a similar illusion of being in control. But when the earth casually shrugs off 100 thousand-odd souls, it sends a great wave of wake-up around the world. We know in our bones it could have been California as easily as Sri Lanka. The North Country too can shiver with deadly force, or be torn by savage winds, or buried in relentlessly thickening ice. We are spared--this time--through no virtue of our own, as the victims were swept away by no sin of theirs. Natural catastrophe may have no moral content, but our response to it certainly does. Please return a wave of generosity to the afflicted in Asia and Africa.