Everyone is talking about how awful Katrina hitting New Orleans and how awful the devastation is. I wonder if they really feel it, because yes it's awful, and yes you're a cold mean person if you think disasters are hilarious and don't really give a shit. Well, yes, here comes the part where I'm revealed to be a cold hearted person if I say Katrina hasn't affected my moods at all. Except for the part where I'm uncomfortable commiserating with other people's sympathy about it. Maybe we all harden a bit. You can be sensitive to everyone and everything. Be upset by things that only affect you emotionally, for example wars going on in distant places.
Katrina was a fascinating spectacle to watch yes. But shit happens, life goes on. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados are things humans have no control over. It's like death, we all have a 100% certainty we'll all die. We have no control over it. I have to think about Katrina because its on the news and everyone is talking about it. Yes, it's awful that emergency medical services are inadequately prepared to do their jobs because of loss of electricity, roads that are impassible, and other difficulties. That the superdome is overcrowded and there are some huge issues with sanitation. And here I'll be brutally honest. I'm just glad the past two days in D.C. have been absolutely gorgeous.
Because I'm honestly more affected by the hell that is Iraq. I'm more affected when I hear a suicide bomber to target one American soldier, blew up the 10 children the soldier was passing candy to. I see the images on aljazeera of their crying uncles, brothers, and fathers carrying their bodies away. That my friend, is what I see when I go to work. And I won't go into the graphic details. Again I'm not belittling anything else that is going on in New Orleans or the Sudan, it's just not everyone has the same issues close to their heart.
Hurricanes happen, we may be able to prepare for them. Given their unpredictableness and their uncontrollableness, all there is left is recovery. And then there are human disasters of our own creation, I find those the saddest of all.
UPDATE:
Well actually the more I read about New Orleans the more awful I feel about it for those people.
But I don't know. I'm suspicious of the media. I've been suspicious since up to the Iraq war, most broadcasting stations were juxtapositioning images of 9/11 with news stories on Iraq's alleged WMD program.
Maybe I can't shake the feeling Americans are resilient beings, and somehow everything will be okay; it must the be the denial phase.
1 comment:
Naz, I think that all of emotions that you list (realism: shit happens, "glad it wasn't me": beautiful day today, "what about Iraq?": What about Iraq?) are common and would be hesitant to say that other Americans have lost sight on the more impactful things upon our country such as a war a bunch of miles away. I think the human brain has the capacity to feel all of these things but still feel sorry for our fellow countrymen (and women).
I'm happy that you had an "update" section because I was beginning to worry about you for a bit! But even if it hadn't changed your moods at all, so what? We all have a soft spot for certain things be it natural disasters or human-made disasters; as long as someone's out there trying to right a wrong, that's all that matters, really.
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