I feel like I've spent most of the day, on and off, watching newsreports about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.I've been following things throughout the week, but it was kind of a hit and miss affair, whereas today I just watched everything I could find.
I started with the Sunday program this morning, seeing Australia's response or lack of same due to America keeping consulate officials out of New Orleans. There were a few stories about Australians being rescued, but I was more interested in the bigger picture, I know it sounds weird... but its an American issue... I wanted to hear about America's reaction to itself.
And I got the big picture... I caught two or three different channel's news, picking bits of the story from here there and everywhere, before watching the Sixty Minutes story.
I guess I'm kind of numb about the whole thing. Its all so incredibly tragic, but at the same time it confirms quite a few of my beliefs and opinions on a whole bunch of things about the US Government, about my own Government, about the media and about the very best and very worst people are capable of.
Seeing those people trapped in the city, or stuck out on the highway, I keep wondering, how would I react if I was in that situation, what would I do... but the reality of it is, I would have loaded up my little car with all my essentials (and probably a large number of non-essentials), and I woulda hauled ass outta there at the first call to evacuate. The prodominantly African-American people that we're seeing left behind didn't have that option.
I've been reading a lot of the blog entries on the issue... Brat Boy School's Ethan has some strong thoughts on the subject (and I noticed on the news tonight that someone was obviously listening to his idea about cruise ships) as well as Proceed at Your Own Risk's daily diatribes on the subject.
But weirdly enough, this almost throwaway post from monotonous dot net before everything fell apart keeps floating around in my brain, as my comment shows.
New Orleans is one of the places I've always wanted to visit. And I still do. I'm just hoping that when the water rolls back that the people return and help their waterlogged Southern Belle return to her former glory.
Current Mood:
No comments:
Post a Comment