The Big Un-Easy
Sep. 2nd, 2005 08:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraOne thing's for sure: Katrina does not bode well for the inevitable nuclear-device-in-a-cargo-container scenario. The center is not holding.
If the New Orleans devastation had been the result of a terrorist strike and not a natural disaster, would survivor relief have come faster, one wonders? Does Bush save his big guns for his increasingly paranoid obsession with Iraq and the Evil Empire? Or what if the majority of people who couldn't evacuate New Orleans had been white?
I've spent much of the past two days crouched in front of a television screen, frantically clicking, remote roulette – Fox News has the most sensationalistic coverage though they got to it late, boring us as late as Wednesday night with stories about Shiite stampedes; MSNBC has the best liberal slant; CNN is the most reliable. Of course, only so much information dribbles out over an hour so when they start to loop the video feeds and the same disturbing photographs for the fourth time, I have to run over to my computer, fire up my browser, frantically click in www.nytimes.com, www.latimes.com.
This is some kind of obsessive compulsive behavior.
Still. The Destruction of New Orleans is the biggest national event that is likely to happen within my lifetime (unless the Mayans are right, and the world ends in 2013) and I feel compelled to bear witness – never mind that I'm not seeing anything that millions of others aren't seeing too, never mind that I'm so far removed from the primary source.
It's kind of like binge drinking.
And I can feel myself going nuts behind it. Can't focus on anything else. Went to a planning meeting yesterday afternoon for Robin's science camp retreat – I do so like Robin's sixth grade teacher, the sane and literate Mr. Spedding! They are spending a week up near the Sonora Pass, hiking and rock climbing and doing the ropes course. The pleasant little satellite classroom smelled like chalk dust, National Geographic maps decorating its walls. On a table near the wall sat twelve different brands of paper towels, the children's first exposure to scientific method: which paper towel is the most absorbent?
Mr. Spedding did a slide show for us – here are the Dardanelle Cones, note the classic U-shaped glacial valley – and all I wanted to do was scream where are the bloated corpses? where is the twenty feet of stagnant oil-slicked sewage and the victims and the looters and the incompetant FEMA guy blowing smoke out his asshole? And I had to remind myself: you're not watching television now. You're in a room three thousand miles away from New Orleans with a group of adults who are sane. Try to maintain.
If the New Orleans devastation had been the result of a terrorist strike and not a natural disaster, would survivor relief have come faster, one wonders? Does Bush save his big guns for his increasingly paranoid obsession with Iraq and the Evil Empire? Or what if the majority of people who couldn't evacuate New Orleans had been white?
I've spent much of the past two days crouched in front of a television screen, frantically clicking, remote roulette – Fox News has the most sensationalistic coverage though they got to it late, boring us as late as Wednesday night with stories about Shiite stampedes; MSNBC has the best liberal slant; CNN is the most reliable. Of course, only so much information dribbles out over an hour so when they start to loop the video feeds and the same disturbing photographs for the fourth time, I have to run over to my computer, fire up my browser, frantically click in www.nytimes.com, www.latimes.com.
This is some kind of obsessive compulsive behavior.
Still. The Destruction of New Orleans is the biggest national event that is likely to happen within my lifetime (unless the Mayans are right, and the world ends in 2013) and I feel compelled to bear witness – never mind that I'm not seeing anything that millions of others aren't seeing too, never mind that I'm so far removed from the primary source.
It's kind of like binge drinking.
And I can feel myself going nuts behind it. Can't focus on anything else. Went to a planning meeting yesterday afternoon for Robin's science camp retreat – I do so like Robin's sixth grade teacher, the sane and literate Mr. Spedding! They are spending a week up near the Sonora Pass, hiking and rock climbing and doing the ropes course. The pleasant little satellite classroom smelled like chalk dust, National Geographic maps decorating its walls. On a table near the wall sat twelve different brands of paper towels, the children's first exposure to scientific method: which paper towel is the most absorbent?
Mr. Spedding did a slide show for us – here are the Dardanelle Cones, note the classic U-shaped glacial valley – and all I wanted to do was scream where are the bloated corpses? where is the twenty feet of stagnant oil-slicked sewage and the victims and the looters and the incompetant FEMA guy blowing smoke out his asshole? And I had to remind myself: you're not watching television now. You're in a room three thousand miles away from New Orleans with a group of adults who are sane. Try to maintain.
