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Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Hurricane Katrina: Two Observations

Not such a funny post today.

The mainstream media and blogosphere are covering the devastation of Hurricane Katrina all too well. Thus, I will not try to add to the frenzy here ... except for two points that I have not yet heard:

First, not to minimize the horror many are facing in Mississippi and Louisiana this week, but perhaps Katrina will give us Americans some perspective on the similar hell faced much more often in many other countries.

Sure, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami--with around a quarter of a million deaths--got a great deal of attention from the entire world. But when was the last time you saw days of media saturation (sorry) about a typhoon hammering South China or the maelstroms slamming into Bangldesh on a regular basis?

Almost every year, thousands (or tens of thousands) die there, and millions more suffer, yet we barely even notice. Perhaps the pictures we are all seeing this week from our own country will grant us a window into the brutish life millions of others face nearly every year.

Second, we know about the difficulty in evacuating so many people from rooftops, especially in New Orleans, because of all of the disastrous flooding. They are looting, they are starving, they are starting to die of thirst ... but we cannot get enough helicopters in there to rescue them all.

We see them waving "Help Us" signs, and we hurt just thinking of what they are going through.

Wait a minute ... we are SEEING them, aren't we?

And how is that? It's footage from a news helicopter!

So why the hell are the news helicopters circling around and taking minutes-long video of these people, only to fly away to capture more footage instead of grabbing some of them?

Regardless of whether these poor souls should have--or could have--evacuated when they were warned to, may the Force be with them.

2 Comments:

At August 31, 2005 8:39 PM, Blogger :| raven |: replied to my musings ...

i don't want to get into an argument of any kind .. so i will respectfully decline to respond to your first point.

your second point; however, has great merit. i hadn't thought of that but you're right!! why are those news copters just taking arial photographs / video instead of rescuing some of these people??? or delivering bottled water? SOMETHING rather than capitalizing on this horrendous tragedy!?!

wow ... bastages!!

 
At September 01, 2005 9:19 PM, Blogger :| raven |: replied to my musings ...

one thing someone pointed out to me is that the "news" helicopters are not equipped to "rescue" people ... he was explaining that not all helicopters are built the same. would be the different between a VW Bug and a Hummer. that made sense to me but i still argued that they could be dropping food / water, etc.

regarding the other point .... it has been my very long held belief that our country [government] does not focus ENOUGH on us .. and spends it's time trying to look good to the world. i'm sure that media saturation regarding the natural disasters in South China or Bangledesh in and around the countries closest to them. just because we are not seeing it here doesn't mean that it isn't being seem someplace.

we were so quick to give BILLIONS of dollars to the tsunami victims .. but still children in this country were going to bed homeless and starving that night .. which is horrendous.

what .. are we the richest country in the world .. or in the top 5 .. and yet there is such a disparity between the rich and the poor .. and we don't seem to give a shit about our poor.

so why is it that now it's going on 4 days since the people in the Gulf region have had clean water, food, etc. 4 DAYS. even the tsunami victims didn't have to wait that long and our own government can't get SUPPLIES TO THEM??

why is this? because 60% of the folks in that area are black?

it is appalling to me that they have been virtually left to fend for themselves. that they are being held in a stadium with 15,000 other people with no air conditioning .. no food .. no water .. and broken toilets????????

this is the USA for God's sake!!! let President Bush hang out there for 1 day and see how fast things would change ....

 

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