Although coinages are springing up as fast from the Enron implosion as their off-shore partnerships grew, for our money, to call someone an enron is almost as bad as wishing them an IRS audit. It was in driving down Middle Neck Road watching in horror as a driver swerved in and out of lanes leaving a trail of traumatized drivers in his trail, that for me, a new word usage was born. "What an enron!"

An enron: a person whose drive for money, fame, and power or just being first, coupled with a lack of personal ethics and callous disregard for the effects of his or her behavior on other people, has devastating consequences to people in their way. As the enron tears through life, the unsuspecting are figuratively and literally capsized in their wake without the enron giving so much as a backward glance.

At the end of The Great Gatsby, there is a haunting line in which F. Scott Fitzgerald describes the two main characters. It comes to mind as we view the spectacle of Enron. "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy, they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.''

We are witnessing signs of carelessness in our community ranging from quality of life issues to life itself. We see it in the virtual litter epidemic with cans, bottles, and papers strewn on our by-ways; we see it in the reckless drivers that barrel past stopped school buses or alternately clog the flow of traffic as they double park in the Plaza without so much as a blinker on. We see it when drivers just behind us with clear visibility, honk madly as we wait to allow pedestrians to cross or drive at the speed limit. We see it in the constant assault on our zoning laws and the efforts to develop every parcel of land to the max. We see it as developers are allowed to decimate old, valuable trees on lots by default as they carelessly maim the root systems resulting in die-off, usually in a couple of years.

And yes, every week our pages are filled with stories of people who are giving, striving and showing great care for our community and beyond. Thankfully, they comprise the majority.

But be alert. The enrons are among us.