"Sadly, this week -I've been borged out in hospital the past four days- watching nothing but amazing human intrest pieces about people helping total strangers from as far away as Utah, only to turn on BBC and see that the rest of the world is only reporting on scandal, deaths, floating bodies, disease and the few morons too stupid to leave their sewer soaked homes."
See, here's the thing, though: Those "amazing" human interest stories oughtn't be amazing at all. That sort of thing ought to be commonplace when something like this happens. The fact that a better-off human being doing something kind for a not-so-well-off human being is considered newsworthy is what's worrying.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well....no. It's "amazing" when a family in Utah takes in a woman who got seperated from her kids, spends days on end calling every shelter and agency and finally finds the kids, and then buys the mom a plane ticket to be reunited with them.
That's pretty fucking amazing of them.
Most people would just send some money or mabe voulenteer ther home as a place for the refugees to stay. If life were more like Star Trek, it would be commonplace, but in our world, it's rare and noteworthy.
As for "just" being really cool to those in need, that's great to see too and it would be nice if BBC had shown some of that along with the clusterfuck and corpses.
But who knows? I missed it today, so mabye they did a big piece on people pulling together and the uncrushable human spirit and good ol' american spirit to rebuild in the face of overwhelming adversity....
But I kinda doubt it.
Of course, bad news is big news here as there, so I'm not singling them out- we dont exactly delve into the locals after the Tsunami pulling together either (hey, whatever happened to those guys? They must be all fixed up by now as no one is reporting on their plight- gosh that was fast).
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Probably because the bad news from the Indian Ocean these days is more of the "Locals return to rebuild their stricken homes, only to find they don't live there, they never lived there, and that beach is now the site for a luxury hotel, opening in 2006" variety. Not the kind of corporate shenanigans you get corporate news outlets covering. Beyond that, I see the occasional news piece about rebuilding efforts (usually cautiously optimistic in tone), and there was an interesting Horizon documentary about techniques being used to identify dead Western victims.
posted
I saw a doco about how Detroit is losing citizens fast - whole tracts of suburbia empty and decaying. Maybe a lot of New Orleans citizens could set up shop there for a bit?
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posted
Wait till the fraud scams start making the air. And the profiteers like the guy who drove down there with a truckload of ice charging $10 per bag. My understanding is that he got pummeled and rightfully so. I hope they gave him an ice enema.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
That same thing happened here after hurricane Andrew.
Why florida's anti-goiging laws are not national is a mystery to me. Profiteering from disasters is a felony here.
Well, unless you're a oil company, that is. Then you should feel free to fuck over whomever you want, as long as the political contributions keep flowing.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort, which reaches across many agencies of government and includes the direct involvement of Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development.
By Dan Froomkin Special to washingtonpost.com Thursday, September 15, 2005; 12:00 PM
All you really need to know about the White House's post-Katrina strategy -- and Bush's carefully choreographed address on national television tonight -- is this little tidbit from the ninth paragraph of Elisabeth Bumiller and Richard W. Stevenson's story in the New York Times this morning:
"Republicans said Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, was in charge of the reconstruction effort."
Rove's leadership role suggests quite strikingly that any and all White House decisions and pronouncements regarding the recovery from the storm are being made with their political consequences as the primary consideration. More specifically: With an eye toward increasing the likelihood of Republican political victories in the future, pursuing long-cherished conservative goals, and bolstering Bush's image.
That is Rove's hallmark.
Rove, Bush's long-time political adviser and the "architect" of Bush's ascendancy, was rewarded after the 2004 election with a position at the White House with overt policy responsibilities. But whereas in some previous White Houses, governance took precedence over campaigning once the election was safely over, Rove has shown no sign of ever putting policy goals above political ones. (See my Rove profile.)
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Well he was cleared of any wrongdoing in the outing of Valerie Plame after all, right?
I mean, it's not like the media or the public to forget something so outrageous just because there is some big disaster story to focus attention on.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
And as I heard two days ago, Bush has set it up so that the companies of his old pals, including Halliburton, will get most of the contracts for fixing up New Orleans.
So this, coupled with Bush's chance to affect the polls with his deeply-felt public apology amounts to not a bad month.
Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Well, (as I understand it) Haliburton already had the contract to do any cleanup involving Homeland Security (though they did not have to bid against anyone for that contract- something many, including Republicans are upset about) and since FEMA is under homeland Security now.... They got the contract by default (they're probably the best qualified to clean up the oil side of things anyway, despite their Evil Corperation status).
Nice how that all works out- coincidence, of course.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Funny story there- the bridges are indeed a waste of money, but it's Alaska's money to waste. If anyone should be calling for "a redirecting of funds" it's the people of Alaska.
It's amusing that they are trying to shame Alaska into helping New Orleans- when the Valdez went aground and destroyed Alaska's seafood industry, I did not see Lousiana rushing to help by forfitting state funding- in fact, they profited nicely from it by increased sales from their fishing industries.
Nothing like the pot calling the kettle black, right?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
As in shady as hell- like New Orleans politics.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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"Funny story there- the bridges are indeed a waste of money, but it's Alaska's money to waste."
Unless I'm missing something, it's federal money. And it was given to Alaska specifically for the bridges. It's not like the government was going to give Alaska half-a-billion dollars no matter what, just to spend on whatever they like.
Registered: Mar 1999
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