Hasn't my generation experienced enough?
31 August 2005
So, as I was sitting in my air-conditioned apartment, watching a Dateline special on Katrina's aftermath, drinking water I didn't have to worry about its purity and realizing how damn lucky so many of us are, I began to think about tragedy.
New Orleans won't be a city for quite a while, in fact they should probably get what they can from the water and buldoze the rest in order to prevent disease and further harm. As I watch and read reports from the Gulf I realize how fortunate I am and how unfortunate the world is. I have never seen a natural disaster up close and can only imagine what it means to lose everything. Last night I started to think about everything that is most important to me, so I could put it in one spot so if something of Katrina's magnitude affected me I would be able to save my possesions. Then realized how rediculous it must be to be thinking about material things-realizing people have lost loved ones, years of memories, jobs, pets and their way of life. My meger experience with loss, while devastating in its own personal way, doesn't even compare to the reality of the world, to the current situation in the south.
You know reality, a word that most people these days associate with a television program. Television programs that don't demonstrate the reality which is actually real.
What is real these days is that my generation has experienced disasters at a rate so frequent that television shows must be made depicting a false reality in which people can escape so they don't have to become paranoid like people did during the Red Scare or the age of the atomic bomb. We aren't building underground shelters or becoming suspecious of others, but instead emersing ourselves in a television line-up of false reality. (Wow getting a bit heavy, don't exactly know where these thoughts are coming from, but am reminded of a project I did with Meagan and the green screen. I smile a bit.)
The devastation in Mississippi and Lousiana is real and going to have a rippel effect on the entire United States. I mean today I paid $2.97 a gallon for gas, gas that was $.40 cheaper one day ago, but I guess I can't complain because I am able to drive my car down the street not flooded with water.
There is an irony to this Dateline special that I am watching seeing thousands of homes destroyed but a Walmart is standing, but I suppose so people can get some food and other necessities.
As I tear up watching the Dateline montage to 'Amazing Grace' my heart breaks for these people, many of whom aren't going to have the money to rebuild (There is a 30-40% poeverty rate in the region-I have learned.) And as the hour program ends, NBC promos a benefit concert to raise money for the Red Cross and the situation seems errily familiar to the other recent disasters (natural or man-made) that have occurred all too frequently in my rather short lifetime.
I read an interesting comment concerning if the world was going to give the US the same response we gave to Asia after the tsunami. I guess it is true you find out who your real friends are during times of tragedy.
I don't exactly know if I will get to go to New Orleans when I am down in Lake Charles visiting within the year, I guess only time will tell exactly what is going to happen, but I do know that I am going to donate some money to the cause and think more about giving than receiving, thankful that I have been fortunate. Knowing oneday my fate might be different.
And this is just a few of my thoughts.........
New Orleans won't be a city for quite a while, in fact they should probably get what they can from the water and buldoze the rest in order to prevent disease and further harm. As I watch and read reports from the Gulf I realize how fortunate I am and how unfortunate the world is. I have never seen a natural disaster up close and can only imagine what it means to lose everything. Last night I started to think about everything that is most important to me, so I could put it in one spot so if something of Katrina's magnitude affected me I would be able to save my possesions. Then realized how rediculous it must be to be thinking about material things-realizing people have lost loved ones, years of memories, jobs, pets and their way of life. My meger experience with loss, while devastating in its own personal way, doesn't even compare to the reality of the world, to the current situation in the south.
You know reality, a word that most people these days associate with a television program. Television programs that don't demonstrate the reality which is actually real.
What is real these days is that my generation has experienced disasters at a rate so frequent that television shows must be made depicting a false reality in which people can escape so they don't have to become paranoid like people did during the Red Scare or the age of the atomic bomb. We aren't building underground shelters or becoming suspecious of others, but instead emersing ourselves in a television line-up of false reality. (Wow getting a bit heavy, don't exactly know where these thoughts are coming from, but am reminded of a project I did with Meagan and the green screen. I smile a bit.)
The devastation in Mississippi and Lousiana is real and going to have a rippel effect on the entire United States. I mean today I paid $2.97 a gallon for gas, gas that was $.40 cheaper one day ago, but I guess I can't complain because I am able to drive my car down the street not flooded with water.
There is an irony to this Dateline special that I am watching seeing thousands of homes destroyed but a Walmart is standing, but I suppose so people can get some food and other necessities.
As I tear up watching the Dateline montage to 'Amazing Grace' my heart breaks for these people, many of whom aren't going to have the money to rebuild (There is a 30-40% poeverty rate in the region-I have learned.) And as the hour program ends, NBC promos a benefit concert to raise money for the Red Cross and the situation seems errily familiar to the other recent disasters (natural or man-made) that have occurred all too frequently in my rather short lifetime.
I read an interesting comment concerning if the world was going to give the US the same response we gave to Asia after the tsunami. I guess it is true you find out who your real friends are during times of tragedy.
I don't exactly know if I will get to go to New Orleans when I am down in Lake Charles visiting within the year, I guess only time will tell exactly what is going to happen, but I do know that I am going to donate some money to the cause and think more about giving than receiving, thankful that I have been fortunate. Knowing oneday my fate might be different.
And this is just a few of my thoughts.........
