Plumbers

This is the last day of the 2010 Hurricane season, many hurricanes this year, not one hitting the coast of North Carolina. This is the greatest concern of coastal citizens, people never recover from the destruction of the hurricane, moving water is the most powerful force known to man.

I was away in the military in 1954 when Hurricane Hazel devastated the east coast of North Carolina. Until their deaths, my parents, grandparents and others, never stopped talking about Hurricane Hazel. This hurricane devastated the beaches, the farmlands, the woodlands for at least 100 miles inland, the buildings and woodlands of my father's farms, were still mostly devastated 50 years after the event. Such devastation as with a tsunami will wipe out most governments, most insurance companies.

If you live east of Highway 95 in eastern NC, you have only one choice of insurance regarding water damage, all the other large, powerful insurance companies deserted the state. There should be a North Carolina law, indeed a federal law that insurance companies cannot cherry-pick who they will insure. As far as natural disasters, I am going through such a ridiculous situation regarding my beach house, right now. I know you should never assume anything, but you just naturally assume that when you buy a house, built according to government specifications, inspected by government, approved by government and insurance company inspectors, that certain building codes have been observed. I don't understand why any construction company, any design architect would put a hot water tank on the top floor of a house. This was my first claim with this NC beach plan insurance company.

I had never made a claim for hurricane damage even though experiencing hurricane damage, but a leak at the hot water tank from corrosion, age or whatever caused water to leak and damage the interior of the house during my absence from the property. After going through the trauma of restoration, insurance adjusters, contractors, etc. I put a cut-off valve on the outside of the house, this valve cuts off all water going in to the house, just as the meter in the street. I recommend that everyone do this, one cannot imagine how much damage a water leak can cause throughout a house. After this, whenever I was away for any period of time, the water was cut off by my driver, and was turned back on by my driver when I returned to the property, usually on weekends.

Once again, 15 years later, I get up on a Sunday morning, and find that a pipe has ruptured on the lower floor of the house. Totally blind, living alone, I called for emergency assistance, the chief of the fire department and the chief of the police department responded, called a restoration company, and I left the entire matter in the hands of the insurance company to which I had paid much money, the restoration company, and the various inspectors responsible for permitting fees.

I believe this type disaster, when compared to a hurricane or tsunami, minor, could happen in any home, anywhere, any time. But, since I have had two insurance water losses, my insurance has been canceled, the only insurance available, a monopoly enterprise.

A new book has just come out entitled Watergate Exposed (Robert Merritt), it is now known that the Watergate, so-called break-in, was a contrived method to get rid of a President. If you want to get ill with the corruption of Washington DC, the “gay” element in destroying politicians, you then find that Woodward and Bernstein, Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, The Pentagon Papers, the Senate hearings, the tapes and everything else pertaining to this sordid chapter in American history, at which time the word “plumbers” was often used because of an attempt to keep certain national secrets secret. The assorted memos and other national documents leaked this week become less threatening. Many went to prison, Pat Nixon never recovered, fortunes were made from books, but all Watergate, WikiLeaks, all just symptoms of the cancer which is destroying the patient, the United States of America.

Is it conceivable, does any thinking adult believe possible that in a world of technology, CIA, FBI, MID, the world's greatest superpower cannot protects it's most vital data, secrets, diplomacy matters affecting the entire world? Are the millions of intelligence officials, both in the military and civilian branches of government, just paid to sleep, attend cocktail parties, play the “games” until retirement? It is an insult to the hard-working, God-fearing, tax-paying American citizen and should be an embarrassment to every politician and bureaucrat in Washington and elsewhere, that such a treason disaster has happened in the first place.

In many trips around the world, I witnessed diplomats with their diplomatic pouches, exiting and entering planes via diplomatic doors. We hear of safe phones, sound-proof rooms, encryption, spies, intelligence gathering via “bugs”. We are told that intelligence gathering is so exact that eyes are trained to read lips across a room, that we have satellites in the sky that can give accurate information. Have we been stupid enough to believe that James Bond, 007, was just a paragon of our sensibilities and sensitivities. The intelligence budget for America in 2009 was estimated to be $50 billion. What happened to the money?

This is more than a capture of diplomatic gossip, lives are at stake. In a cauldron of evil, where forces of sanity and insanity “mix it up”, at a time when one world government seems to be the order of the day, when unbelievable fortunes are made by conglomerates that just keep people fighting one another, it essential to insure integrity and honesty to government at all levels, but certainly people intelligent enough to keep our secrets in the vault.

One of the world's greatest preachers, Charles H. Bergen, told us to demand the truth, that spiritual and physical life is not for amusement. As with one's soul, a well-fed body can still go to hell, a well-clothed, healed, intellectual, inspired soul can still go to hell. America has been blessed with great wealth, great superpower status, but if we do not have the essentials of survival, we will wind up in the pangs of hell. It is too late for mops and buckets, call the plumbers and get to the gusher.