I guess that third definition would be the one the President and Congress are talking about. In fact here is a quote from the President about where we are in this country.

Obama warns crisis could become 'catastrophe'
AP, WASHINGTON Wednesday, Feb 11, 2009, Page 1
US President Barack Obama, in the first nationally televised evening news conference of his young presidency, demanded that lawmakers pass an US$800-billion-plus economic recovery plan or risk turning "a crisis into a catastrophe."

So, according to our President we are now in a crisis, and he is trying to stop that crisis from becoming a catastrophe.

Well, there are crises, and then there are crises. Wouldn't you think that if the President of the United States in his first Nationally televised News Conference told the nation that we are in a crisis, and he is doing his very best to stop that crises from becoming a catastrophe, he would cancel his vacation plans for that next weekend? I would!

I would think that Congress would stick around, too. It seems like every State's budget has a huge multi-billion dollar shortfall, but every State government closed down for a short vacation too, although some state legislatures worked the weekend.

Just maybe the word "crisis" was the wrong word to use. At least I hope it was, because if it was the right word to use to describe our nation's financial condition, then we really have the wrong people working on that problem. And if a vacation in the middle of a crisis is that important to them, then a catastrophe is going to hit us for sure.

Post Script:

I read this column over and started to wonder just why the people we elected in Washington don't seem to take this "crisis" very seriously. I figure, either we don't really have a crisis, or it is the fact that the people we elected in Washington are sitting pretty. They have a pay check coming in, and they have the best family medical plan money can buy. Sure, like the rest of America those elected officials might have lost on their retirement investments, but few Americans get anything close to the retirement package that our politicians are looking forward to.

The men and women in Congress and those in the executive branch have no idea of what a real crisis is, but millions of Americans do. A real crisis is when you lose your job, or your home, or both. A real crisis is when you don't know where you will get the money to feed your kids, or what you will do when they repossess your only car, and you won't even be able to look for a job.

Our elected officials are insulated from what is really going on in America, and that is the real reason that they can sit back and take a long weekend, while millions of their fellow citizens are forced to know the real effects of the crisis we are living through right now.