Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

I think…therefore I’m dangerous.

George W. Bush Resume

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Is all this stuff really true?

I got this from my friend, Ray. It’s tragic to think that this might really be true.

I will be available in January 2009, am willing to relocate.

R E S U M E

GEORGE “DUBYA” BUSH
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20520

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

Law Enforcement:
I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver’s license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been ‘lost’ and is not available.

Military:
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

College:
I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was a cheerleader.

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:

I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.

I began my career in the oil business in Midland Texas , in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn’t find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.

I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.

With the help of my father and our friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected governor of Texas .

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS:

I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union . During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America .

I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.

I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American history.

With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida , and my father’s appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President of the United States , after losing by over 500,000 votes.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:

I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.

I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per week.

I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.

I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.

I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.

I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.

I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market. In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues.

I’m proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history. My ‘poorest millionaire, ‘Condoleezza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.

I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President.

I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.

My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. history, Enron.

My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.

I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip-offs in history.

I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.

I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.

I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.

I appointed more convicted criminals to my administration than any President in U.S. history.

I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States Government.

I’ve broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history.

I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.

I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.

I refused to allow inspector’s access to U.S. ‘prisoners of war’ detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.

I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 US election)

I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any President since the advent of television.

I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period. After taking off the entire month of August.

I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.

I garnered the most sympathy ever for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.

I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind

I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, preemptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. Citizens and the world community.

I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families i n wartime.

In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends.

I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.

I am supporting development of a nuclear ‘Tactical Bunker Buster,’ a WMD.

I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice.

RECORDS AND REFERENCES:

All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father’s library, sealed and unavailable for public view.

All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review. I specified that my sealed documents will not be available for 50 years.

The Fournier Non-Jump

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The question is, why?

Like most of us these days, I’m on a number of e-mail distribution lists maintained by friends and acquaintances who like to pass along interesting photos and links. One of them is maintained by Edward, a fellow pilot and aviation buff.

On Monday, he sent out an e-mail message with an article about French skydiver Michel Fournier. Mr. Fournier planned to attempt to break the altitude record for skydiving later that day. I followed the link in the message and learned that he’d be doing the jump over Canada from a helium balloon when it reached 40,000 meters or 25 miles up, on “the edge of space.”

Today, Edward sent out a single link as a followup: “French skydiver fails record freefall bid.” From the article:

French skydiver Michel Fournier’s bid to set a new altitude freefall record was scuppered Tuesday when the balloon that was to carry him into the stratosphere separated from his gondola.

The balloon had been scheduled to take off at around 4:30 am (1030 GMT) from North Battleford in western Canada’s Saskatchewan province, but somehow detached from the gondola and drifted away, leaving the 64-year old parachutist behind on the ground.

Wow. Didn’t anyone think to check the connections between the balloon and the gondola?

Later in the article, I learned that:

He had two earlier unsuccessful attempts too, in 2002 and 2003. His balloon tore in 2003 and he had bought a new one for this trial, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars. For a balloon filled with 600,000 cubic meters of helium. To take a 64-year-old man into the sky so he can try for the third time to break a record.

What will this record prove? Well, the original idea was to prove that space shuttle astronauts could safely eject from a landing shuttle in the event of a problem. Of course another man, American Joseph Kittinger, had already survived a jump from 31,333 meters for a medical experiment in 1960. But I guess that wasn’t good enough for Fournier and the money men behind him. When the European Space Agency abandoned that mission, Fourier continued the project with private financing.

My question is, why?

How many hundreds of thousands — if not millions, at this point — of dollars has Fournier pissed away on this ego trip? There are people starving throughout the world right now as the cost of basic staples like rice climb sky high (no pun intended). AIDS continues to spread. People are dying for want of something as simple as a mosquito net to protect them while they sleep. The money handed over by Fournier’s deep pocket friends could have helped hundreds, if not thousands of people, meet a few of the necessities of everyday life.

Instead, it was caught up in a lost balloon that, although recovered, can never be used again.

Don’t get me wrong — I have nothing against achievements that can move man forward in science. While it might be nice to know that a properly equipped, financed, and trained man who has made over 8,000 jumps can survive a jump from 25 miles up, how is that going to impact scientific study? The article did not mention that he was bringing along any experiments — just a camera and equipment to record his sonic boom. (I assume that was for the documentary they’d likely make and sell in an attempt to cash in on this project.) I don’t see this as being more than just another wasteful and frivolous stab at fame.

Am I missing something? It’s possible. I certainly haven’t been following this story. If you know something that justifies this stunt, please do use the Comments link or form to share what you know.

And please don’t think I have anything specifically against Mr. Fournier. I don’t. There are other men and women of many different nationalities — including more than a few Americans — who similarly attempt and either fail or succeed at record-breaking stunts apparently designed to stroke their egos and feed our need for sensationalist entertainment.

But when you consider the big picture and the wastefulness of these attempts, it just seems very, very wrong.

My Neighbor’s Windmill

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Things change.

There were a few things that drew us to our house in Wickenburg back in 1997 — beyond the obvious benefits of living in a recently built home. Situated in a hilly and rocky area on the edge of town, our 2-1/2 acres of horse property ensured plenty of privacy. Indeed, to this day we often sleep with the curtains wide open to the night sky. We had few neighbors and the ones nearby were generally very quiet. The dirt road we shared with two neighboring homes was in such bad shape that we didn’t have to worry about strangers bothering us. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have only found us twice in 11 years.

But one of the best things about our house was the view out the back. I’m not talking about the glimpse of nearby Vulture Peak. I’m talking about my neighbor’s home and its windmill.

My Neighbor's HouseThe house was one of the very first built in our area. It’s a one-story structure with just two bedrooms and two baths, perched on a rocky, lichen-covered outcropping. At the base of the rocks was a densely vegetated flood zone, filled with local trees and bushes slightly higher than the level of Cemetery Wash, which also flows through our property. Up at house level were irrigated trees so mature that they blended in perfectly with the home. The house seemed to be part of the landscape. And in the morning, when the first light of day hit it from the east, it glowed red, as shown in this July 2007 photo.

But what I loved most was the windmill. This wasn’t a decorative lawn ornament — it was the real thing. It looked ancient and antique, but it caught the wind faithfully and pumped water from a well. Enough water for my neighbors to have a fish pond. A pond big enough to attract herons — yes herons! — in the desert.

Sometimes on a quiet evening, when the wind blew from the west, I could hear the mechanical clanking sound of the gears and pumps. The rhythm varied with the wind speed. And we could look outside during daylight hours and see just how windy it was.

When we first moved in, I came very close to choosing the back guest room for my office just so I could look out at that windmill while I worked. But late afternoon sun shining in that window convinced me that the front bedroom was a better choice if I wanted to leave my blinds open.

Time went on. And on. My neighbors decided to move. They put the house up on the market and about sixteen months ago, just before the real estate bubble burst, sold it for their asking price. I heard about the new owners through the local grapevine. Wealthy people who had another home. This would be their “guest house,” one person told us. They have horses and kids. They’re going to use it for a vacation home.

Before long, the workers arrived. They enlarged the horse enclosures on the property’s lower level and put in a welded pipe fence to create an arena. I worried when they put up tall poles for lighting and hoped they didn’t plan on keeping them on every night. More workers came with chainsaws and heavy equipment. Over a period of several days, the removed all the natural vegetation below the house, leaving the land barren. They’re putting in an irrigated pasture, one neighbor said. They used earth moving equipment to pile sand in berms that they evidently expected to protect the newly cleared land. They fenced in all of their flood plain property, putting an access gate in the deepest part of the wash.

Then they disappeared.

For a while, there was a red truck in the driveway. A caretaker, someone told me. Lights were on at night. The house looked a bit lived in. But then the red pickup stopped coming. A single light was on all the time, like a blind eye in a forgotten home. Then even that went out.

Flood!Monsoon season came and the first heavy rain brought a massive flash flood. The sand berms were no match for the power of flowing water. The water coming down the wash was no longer held back by the dense vegetation that had grown below the house. The wash changed its course, flooding the undeveloped “pasture” and cutting across the bottom of our access road. The rushing water completely flooded the sandy area in our part of the flood plain and, for the first time ever, our entire fence was washed away.

Washed Out FenceWhen the water subsided, parts of our neighbor’s new fence were tangled across the access road to our neighbor’s house. Cinderblocks from their corral area littered our lower horse corral. Their “pasture” was filled with sand. Lucky they hadn’t set up the irrigation yet; it would have been destroyed.

No one came to fix their fence. My neighbor dragged its remains aside so he could drive through. After a while, tired of chasing trespassers in quads out of the wash, he spent a whole day repairing the damage.

Still no one came.

Throughout this time, the windmill kept turning. But the fish pond was empty and the riparian wildlife was gone. The irrigation must have been turned off because trees close to the house began to die. It made no sense; the water was free. Why not take care of the trees that depended on it?

This winter, I noticed that the windmill was making more noise than usual. It squealed to life in a heavy breeze, then clanked and screeched as it turned. I wondered why, after all these years, it was having these problems. Finally, after a few weeks of listening to it, I tracked down the former owners and asked them. Did the windmill require maintenance?

Oh, yes, I was told. “We had the pump people come in once a year for preventative maintenance.”

I asked if they could get in touch with the new owners and tell them about the problem. They said they had no way of getting in touch with them. We said goodbye and I hung up with a feeling of foreboding.

More time went by. The squealing and clanking got worse. It wasn’t a happy sound; it was the sound of neglect, the sound of the windmill’s pain. Neighbors who lived closer to the house must have taken action. Perhaps they called the owners. But the solution was not the one I wanted to see.

Headless WindmillWhile I was out one day, workers took the head off the windmill and left it on the ground, at the base of one of the dead trees.

That was two months ago.

Today, the windmill’s tower stands topless, like so many deserted windmills throughout the desert. The trees closest to the house are dead. There are no flowers, no cars in the driveway. A single square of light looks out toward our house every night — the burned out lightbulb replaced by someone who checked in one day. The house seems dead and forgotten.

To me, the death of the windmill is a symbol of what’s happening to Wickenburg. With our 50% seasonal population, there are many homes that stand empty and neglected when summer comes. As developers take horse property and turn it into CC&R-controlled subdivisions, the people who moved to Wickenburg years ago for a taste of the old west are moving out. The new people don’t care about horses and natural desert vegetation and wildlife.

And apparently they just don’t understand the powerful emotions generated by watching an old windmill turn in the breeze.

TV-B-Gone

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A practical joke that may do more good than harm.

I should start out by saying that I’m not a big fan of television. It is the pacifier of the masses. Got a bunch of people liable to complain about a long wait? Put on a TV with something mildly entertaining on it and they’ll sit quietly, hypnotized by the images on the screen. Even if the sound is off! That’s why we see televisions in so many places we’re required to wait, from airport gate areas to doctors’ waiting rooms to restaurants.

My Relationship with the Boob Tube

Keep in mind that I grew up with television. We had one in each bedroom and in the kitchen. We weren’t wealthy people — most of those televisions were black and white — but we were thoroughly hooked into TV. We watched the Today show every morning at breakfast before school and game shows at dinner. I clearly remember seeing first-run episodes of I Dream of Jeannie and Gilligan’s Island. (We weren’t allowed to watch Laugh In — that was for adults.) Every Saturday morning, we were glued to the family TV watching cartoons like Scooby Doo. I remember the birth of Sesame Street and other kids shows like Electric Company. I was introduced to Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood at a neighbor’s house.

I was fifteen when we moved from New Jersey to Long Island, NY, and I got my own room for the first time in my life. Although my sister got a TV almost right away, I didn’t. I got a stereo instead. I got tuned into rock — the real stuff that’s probably considered “classic” now. I clearly remember sitting in my bean bag chair — this was the 70s, you know — near my stereo reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy while a Connecticut-based rock station introduced me to Yes with a 45-minute commercial free segment of Yes music.

I didn’t need a television. With books and good music, I could cook up my own fantasy world right in my head.

I got my own television — a 12″ black and white — right after graduating from college and moving into my first apartment. I was 20.

I got my first color television — a 20-inch Sony — as a Christmas gift when I was in my 30s.

My husband and I now have a 36-inch JVC we bought about five years ago, just before flat screens caught on. At the time, it was the largest television you could buy that wasn’t a projection TV. We bought it to better see the letterbox movies we occasionally rented or watched on various movie channels.

To this day, I’d rather sit in a comfortable chair with a good book than watch the crap that’s on TV. Better yet, I’d rather go out and do something — fly, work in the garden, take a hike, ride a bike, go for a drive, or hang out with friends — than watch TV.

There are exceptions, of course. I really love Jon Stewart on The Daily Show: a dose of reality wrapped in a package of laughter. The Colbert Report is a bit over the top sometimes, but usually worth sitting through. Boston Legal is my favorite fictional show — outrageously funny while clearly making social statements about current events. Other than that, I like informative shows on the Discovery, Science, and History channels, as well as PBS. Shows that can teach me something interesting or make me think.

I watch all television via DVR. For those of you not familiar with the concept — my mom wasn’t — DVR stands for digital video recorder. (TiVo is a DVR device.) It’s build into our satellite TV box and makes it very easy to record the television shows you want to watch. Once recorded, the shows sit on a hard disk and can be easily accessed and watched any time you like — even if the DVR is recording something else. But best of all is the 30-second fast forward button, which makes it easy to skip the commercials.

My TV Problem

I do have a problem, however. If you put me in a room that has a television on and it’s within view, I will get sucked into it. It with grab and hold my attention, turning me into just another one of the TV watching zombies around me.

You know what I mean. You’ve been to restaurants or waiting areas where there’s a TV on. If you’re facing it, you’re watching it. It’s as simple as that.

How can you help it? All those pretty colors flashing about. News channel screen titles and scrolling news tickers grab your attention even with the sound off. You see the pictures, you read the text. Why are the police following that white Blazer? What’s with the yellow tape around that wooded area? Why are they taking that man away in handcuffs? Who’s the guy with [fill-in-the-blank famous celebrity]?

In my case, even if I don’t care about what’s on the screen, I’m still sucked into it. The only solution is to sit with my back to it. But then the person I’m with might be facing it and I can clearly see him or her being sucked in. This makes normal social interaction — like conversation — difficult. It’s as if your party of two or three has just been joined by an invited guest who is demanding the attention of the people in your party.

Think I’m kidding? Exaggerating? The next time you’re in a restaurant or airport gate lounge or other place with a TV on, watch the people around it. How many of them are staring at the image like zombies? How many of them are preferring the onscreen image to conversation with their companion(s)? I’m willing to bet it’s more than 50%.

The universal pacifier.

Enter TV-B-Gone®

I read about TV-B-Gone in Make magazine. It was presented there as a project, but for those of us not comfortable with a soldering iron and circuit board, it was also available for sale.

TV-B-Gone is a universal remote control with just one button: an On/Off button. With it, you can turn virtually any television off (or on).

According to Mitch Altman, inventor of TV-B-Gone:

You can use TV-B-Gone® to control access to television for philosophical or practical reasons, or simply to have fun!

Mr. Altman echos my sentiments about television on the Responsible TV Watching page of his Web site:

How much of the TV that you watch do you really like a lot? If you could choose whatever it is that you’d like to be doing right now, anything at all, what would it be? Was your answer, “Watch TV!”? Whatever your answer was, my wish for you is that you have time in your life to do it. Please make time in your life for what you really like. Better yet, please make time to do what you love. Wouldn’t that be great? Don’t know what you love? Try out a few things, see what happens.

Me, my life got so much better from watching TV less. As a result, I had enough time to invent TV-B-Gone®! My idea was to give others a similar chance – so I created a fun way to get the message out there that turning a TV on or off really is a choice. Anywhere, anytime. Please, go out there and choose.

If you do visit the Responsible TV Watching page, please be sure to check out the links at the bottom of the page. If you’re an avid TV watcher, they may open your eyes to many alternatives.

Anyway, when I read about TV-B-Gone, I had to have one. So I coughed up the $20 plus shipping and bought one.

TV-B-GoneIt looks like the keychain you might have with your car. You know, the kind with buttons to lock and unlock the door and open the trunk. There’s just one button on it and, when you press it once, a flashing red light inside that lets you know its working. Pressing the button twice activates it in stealth mode so the red light doesn’t flash.

You use it by pointing it at the TV and pressing the button. The TV-B-Gone then takes up to 69 seconds to run through all the codes commonly used by television manufacturers to toggle the power. When it gets to the code that activates the TV you’re pointing to, the power goes off (if it was on) or on (if it was off). Pretty simple, no?

Of course, there are some limitations. It won’t work with every television. You have to be line-of-sight with the TV’s remote control receptor thingie. There’s a distance limitation; closer is better. But overall, it’s an effective device for playing practical jokes.

TV-B-Gone in Action!

I took my TV-B-Gone with me on my recent trip to Florida. I wanted to test it out in a variety of settings.

I had no success with the televisions in the gate waiting areas at Houston Airport (IAH). I think it’s because I was too far away. In today’s paranoid world, I didn’t want to be obvious because I didn’t want TSA to come down on me for using a suspicious device. (Perhaps I’m more paranoid than they are?)

I did manage to turn off the TV in the waiting area just before I boarded the plane. It was interesting to see the faces of the people who had been watching it. They went from blank stares to confused stares. Nobody said a word.

A few days later, while having lunch with my parents at a St. Augustine restaurant, I got real satisfaction. We were seated at the counter of the rather small restaurant. There were four — count ’em! — televisions within sight of my seat. One was tuned to some sport channel that appeared to have some kind of log-cutting competition. Another was tuned to CNN. A third was tuned to something else — I couldn’t see it clearly because of the way my seat was angled. And the fourth, a small TV close to the first, was turned off.

I should mention here that no one was watching the two TVs closest to me (log-cutting and CNN). Well, no one other than us, trying to figure out why anyone would compete in a competition that used chainsaws to cut through logs.

I whipped out my TV-B-Gone. A moment later, CNN was turned off. I aimed it at the log-cutting competition. The TV next to it went on. It was apparently some kind of security monitor because it showed images from various locations around the restaurant. In trying again to turn off the log-cutting TV, I turned the security TV back off. That’s when I realized that I probably didn’t have a straight shot to the log-cutting TV.

We continued waiting for our lunch. They were taking their blessed time about it. In all fairness, they were kind of busy.

One of the guys who worked there noticed that the CNN TV was off. He picked up a remote and tried to turn it on. Wrong remote. He tried with another. The TV came back on.

I waited a few minutes and turned it off again.

We’d just gotten our food when the same guy came back and noticed the TV was off again. I clearly heard him say to himself, “What is it with this TV?” He went through the same sequence of trying to turn it on with the wrong remote and then turning it on with the right one. It was tough to keep a straight face. I was seated at the end of the counter and the guy was less than 4 feet from me.

I turned it off again just before we left.

Later, the same day, at Houston Airport, I happened to walk though an area of terminal E that used about 50 televisions to create a display of moving colored lights 15-20 feet over the walkway. How unbelievably wasteful! I activated my TV-B-Gone as I was walking and managed to shut off four of them at once. Later, when I had to walk though the same area because of a gate change, I killed another four on the other side.

Is This a Cruel Joke?

When I bragged in Twitter about turning off the 8 televisions at IAH, @Miraz sent me an @reply message:

Doesn’t turning off TVs annoy the folks watching them? I’d be pretty peeved.

Well, in the case of the 8 TVs with moving colors, I don’t think anyone missed them. They might still be off for all I know.

And my observation of the people in the gate area a few days before didn’t reveal any anger. I think it’s because they weren’t really watching what was on. They were looking at it. Sucked in because there was nothing more interesting (to them) to look at. Or because they have the same TV problem I have.

It’s actually interesting to watch the reactions. It proves, in a way, that they don’t need the television on in front of them. Maybe when the TV goes off, they’ll actually engage in conversation with the people they’re with. Wouldn’t that be special.

But I wouldn’t try my TV-B-Gone in a sports bar. You know the kind of place. They have a bunch of TVs showing whatever real sporting events are on. (I’m not talking about log-cutting here.) Guys are drinking beer and watching the game. They’re shouting at the TV about the plays and the calls. They’re absorbed in what’s going on in front of them.

Get caught turning off one of those TVs, and you’re likely to get a black eye.

And I wouldn’t turn off a TV displaying breaking news about something that really mattered. Or the TV in a doctor’s office if it were displaying content that was keeping kids quiet.

You have to be responsible with your practical jokes.

Related Post:

Survivors?

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An unusual choice of words.

I’m listening to NPR (National Public Radio) this morning. They’re reporting on the Pope’s private meetings with sexual abuse “survivors.”

While I certainly don’t mean to take anything away from the situation — children and young people molested or sexually abused by Catholic priests they trusted — the term survivor seems a little extreme as a label for these now grown people. The first definition of survivor in the dictionary that’s part of Mac OS X is:

a person who survives, esp. a person remaining alive after an event in which others have died : the sole survivor of the massacre.

And that’s how I usually think of a survivor. Consider the phrases Hurricane Katrina survivor, cancer survivor, Titanic survivor. Surely you can come up with others.

But the dictionary goes on to offer the following alternative definition for survivor:

the remainder of a group of people or things : a survivor from last year’s team.

or

a person who copes well with difficulties in their life : she is a born survivor.

Indeed: either of these definitions would apply to these unfortunate people.

What do you think? Is the term survivor an appropriate label for these people? Can you come up with a better label? Perhaps one you heard or read in the media? As someone interested in words, I’m curious.