For Whom The Death Tolls
They can't count the dead until the people stop dying. And that's a long way off. Blame the government. We are bred to believe that nothing's our fault and that if something bad happens it's our right to just compensation. Or at least a bus ride out of our modern concentration camp.
The President should be impeached, I read. It's his fault that looters are shooters too and you'll excuse me if that scares me away from saving you. The government reacted too slowly. What good does a hug from the Consoler-In-Chief if the victims can't hang on until he drags them out of that hell that looks just like Sudan or Ethiopia or whichever African country this week is starving its people to death in the desert. But with taller buildings for backdrop.
People, desperate and destitute, with bewildered looks that show you they have no clue how they got into this mess and even less of an idea of how they'll get out.
It's a look that says, "I might not be good, Jesus, but I didn't deserve this."
It's racism. Must be. Please play that card because now is truly the time for games. No opportunity for free TV time should pass unused. Yes, the second guessing comes before the first guess is conjured about what to do about a mess so unprecedented and unfathomable.
Yes, I'm talking about New Orleans. Where have you been?
We are surprised that a city below sea level could be left sitting below sea. Nobody believed it could happen to them. They wouldn't let us live here if it weren't safe. If there are perils it's like cancer. Somebody else gets it. But sometimes that somebody becomes you or me.
I don't watch much of it on TV. If the images themselves didn't wrench my heart, the commentary by the news anchors would. For a different reason. Here is a class of overblowdried Barbies whose usual overblown hyperbole has met a disaster that exceeds description. How does fearmongering work when the worst fears have realized?
They'll put it to me in terms of degrees of devastation -- most, worst -- but that requires a perspective that is impossible because you can't compare the incomparable. And then they'll begin to tell me how it affects them. Forgive me if I don't want to hear the feelings of people who could leave but don't have the sense to do it. Don't tell me they're forced to be there. If you trade in tragedy for a living, this is your lottery. "Mississippi Misery!" Pass the dehydrated baby and bring her cryin' mama too! I'll get a resume tape out of this!
The good ones among them won't tell me how "completely destroyed (sic)" things are. I can see that for myself, thank you. They will focus on the details. They will share insight into how people keep their humanity in such inhuman conditions. And make us understand when they can't.
My own brushes with natural disaster have been brief and obviously minor by comparison. I cannot say I have been there done that lived to tell about it. I can't imagine it. Can you prepare for what you can't picture? In other times in other ways I have suffered enough to know: Desperation doesn't end when you wish you were dead. It doesn't end until death has tolled for thee.
Elmer, you're not the only one, buddy. I hate that wabbit too.
The President should be impeached, I read. It's his fault that looters are shooters too and you'll excuse me if that scares me away from saving you. The government reacted too slowly. What good does a hug from the Consoler-In-Chief if the victims can't hang on until he drags them out of that hell that looks just like Sudan or Ethiopia or whichever African country this week is starving its people to death in the desert. But with taller buildings for backdrop.
People, desperate and destitute, with bewildered looks that show you they have no clue how they got into this mess and even less of an idea of how they'll get out.
It's a look that says, "I might not be good, Jesus, but I didn't deserve this."
It's racism. Must be. Please play that card because now is truly the time for games. No opportunity for free TV time should pass unused. Yes, the second guessing comes before the first guess is conjured about what to do about a mess so unprecedented and unfathomable.
Yes, I'm talking about New Orleans. Where have you been?
We are surprised that a city below sea level could be left sitting below sea. Nobody believed it could happen to them. They wouldn't let us live here if it weren't safe. If there are perils it's like cancer. Somebody else gets it. But sometimes that somebody becomes you or me.
I don't watch much of it on TV. If the images themselves didn't wrench my heart, the commentary by the news anchors would. For a different reason. Here is a class of overblowdried Barbies whose usual overblown hyperbole has met a disaster that exceeds description. How does fearmongering work when the worst fears have realized?
They'll put it to me in terms of degrees of devastation -- most, worst -- but that requires a perspective that is impossible because you can't compare the incomparable. And then they'll begin to tell me how it affects them. Forgive me if I don't want to hear the feelings of people who could leave but don't have the sense to do it. Don't tell me they're forced to be there. If you trade in tragedy for a living, this is your lottery. "Mississippi Misery!" Pass the dehydrated baby and bring her cryin' mama too! I'll get a resume tape out of this!
The good ones among them won't tell me how "completely destroyed (sic)" things are. I can see that for myself, thank you. They will focus on the details. They will share insight into how people keep their humanity in such inhuman conditions. And make us understand when they can't.
My own brushes with natural disaster have been brief and obviously minor by comparison. I cannot say I have been there done that lived to tell about it. I can't imagine it. Can you prepare for what you can't picture? In other times in other ways I have suffered enough to know: Desperation doesn't end when you wish you were dead. It doesn't end until death has tolled for thee.
Elmer, you're not the only one, buddy. I hate that wabbit too.
posted by jack at 6:17 PM
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