![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The library internet connection ate my last two attempts to post, so I’m at bit of a loss for what to say now…
Life here in Little Whinging is pleasant – I’ve been enjoying having a garden to sit in, being able to wander round in a T-shirt without worrying about being cold, and making use of leafy cycle lanes. I almost feel I could live here quite happily – and that is something I never thought I’d be saying fifteen years ago. I must be getting middle aged!
I head North again on Thursday. Apparently there will be internet access from the house I’m going to, but I’ll be away from there for the first week so don’t expect much resumption of Chthonic activity over the next fortnight.
I haven’t been able (in my rigidly timed hour-long stints at the library) to have a comprehensive look round my flist – I hope none of you have been affected by Katrina? It was really frustrating to be cut off from everyone, but it was heartening to get back online on Friday and see people posting the White House phone numbers and the weblinks to sign up to host people who’d lost their homes. There’s been very little coverage here about the response of ‘ordinary folk’ in the US – just the immediate disaster relief efforts (or lack thereof) and the political fallout for George Bush. It’s very annoying to have to rely on TV and newspapers for one’s view of the world!
I’ve been shocked by the images from New Orleans, but not surprised. I am surprised at the official on the radio last night who said that dealing with armed gangs of looters was not part of the contingency planning. Why on earth not? This is a city where, when I visited, we were told there were only two small neighbourhoods it was safe to walk in, and where we needed an armed guard to visit a cemetery – did the powers that be really think that the predators would put down their guns when resources got scarce?
Nor do I find the comparisons with the Third World particularly new. Anyone who’s done budget travel in the US knows that the much-vaunted American service only applies to those with the money to pay for it. What I experienced when using intercity buses and trying to access medical care for my credit card-less friend was shambolic and squalid – and that was under normal conditions. No surprise at all that things broke down under extreme strain.
It’s a sobering reminder of how thin the veneer of civilisation is (about 3 days, according to ecotherapists who lead wilderness retreats). Ten years ago I lost water in my bedsit because of unusually low temperatures. When getting hold of that most basic necessity depends on retail distribution of bottled water and friends whose pipes didn’t freeze, the fragility of urban infrastructure becomes frighteningly clear.
There was an interesting piece on the BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent yesterday from someone who has covered natural disasters in India. He said that the response there tended to be much quicker (e.g. after the tsunami camps were set up within a couple of days) – partly because they were more accustomed to dealing with disaster, and partly (he conjectured) because their culture is more focussed on ‘we’ than ‘me’. I’m wondering what a country that holds rugged individualism to be such a virtue will make of this extreme demonstration of people’s interdependence. And I’m also wondering why in a country where so many espouse low taxes and small government, so many are now upset that the government is not providing.
And I’m wondering whether this might make officialdom take a more realistic approach to the environment – but I doubt it. There seems to be something about human attitudes to risk that makes most of us unwilling to confront the possibility of disaster until after it happens. Say if they had actually laid on buses to get everyone out before the storm hit – and then the damage had been less than expected. You can bet that someone somewhere would be decrying the ‘overreaction’. Uncertainty appears to be politically unacceptable.
I have found a couple of aspects of the UK coverage disturbing. Is it just me, or is there a hint of schadenfreude in the cataloguing of the mismanagement, of seeing some of the realities behind the holier-than-thou American rhetoric of freedom and opportunity laid bare? Are there really no stories from the Superdome of people banding together to raise morale, or was it really all suicide, rape and starvation?
And, given that it’s obvious that rebuilding the infrastructure and helping those made homeless to rebuild their lives is going to be a massive undertaking – why has there been NO mention here of where to send donations? Perhaps it’s just that our aid charities operate in the developing world and are not in a position to offer help – though I don’t see why they can’t set up a donation line over here for the US Red Cross so that donations could be made tax efficiently.
Perhaps it’s assumed that a rich nation can look after its own – but I find that problematic on two counts. Firstly because a person in need is in need whether they are surrounded by rich neighbours or poor neighbours – the heart reaching out to those in need does not apply means testing. And secondly because it reveals a hint of colonialism in the response to the tsunami - those poor people need our help, but these poor people don’t. Why not? The tsunami hit cities as well as grass-hutted tropical islands – but I wonder if the images of beaches and lush vegetation leads us to assume, even subconsciously, that the Asian countries have less technical and organisational expertise to deal with a disaster than does the US. The immediate response would suggest otherwise – perhaps from now on we’ll be less snobbish about learning from ‘developing’ countries, and more able to see people as people.
Life here in Little Whinging is pleasant – I’ve been enjoying having a garden to sit in, being able to wander round in a T-shirt without worrying about being cold, and making use of leafy cycle lanes. I almost feel I could live here quite happily – and that is something I never thought I’d be saying fifteen years ago. I must be getting middle aged!
I head North again on Thursday. Apparently there will be internet access from the house I’m going to, but I’ll be away from there for the first week so don’t expect much resumption of Chthonic activity over the next fortnight.
I haven’t been able (in my rigidly timed hour-long stints at the library) to have a comprehensive look round my flist – I hope none of you have been affected by Katrina? It was really frustrating to be cut off from everyone, but it was heartening to get back online on Friday and see people posting the White House phone numbers and the weblinks to sign up to host people who’d lost their homes. There’s been very little coverage here about the response of ‘ordinary folk’ in the US – just the immediate disaster relief efforts (or lack thereof) and the political fallout for George Bush. It’s very annoying to have to rely on TV and newspapers for one’s view of the world!
I’ve been shocked by the images from New Orleans, but not surprised. I am surprised at the official on the radio last night who said that dealing with armed gangs of looters was not part of the contingency planning. Why on earth not? This is a city where, when I visited, we were told there were only two small neighbourhoods it was safe to walk in, and where we needed an armed guard to visit a cemetery – did the powers that be really think that the predators would put down their guns when resources got scarce?
Nor do I find the comparisons with the Third World particularly new. Anyone who’s done budget travel in the US knows that the much-vaunted American service only applies to those with the money to pay for it. What I experienced when using intercity buses and trying to access medical care for my credit card-less friend was shambolic and squalid – and that was under normal conditions. No surprise at all that things broke down under extreme strain.
It’s a sobering reminder of how thin the veneer of civilisation is (about 3 days, according to ecotherapists who lead wilderness retreats). Ten years ago I lost water in my bedsit because of unusually low temperatures. When getting hold of that most basic necessity depends on retail distribution of bottled water and friends whose pipes didn’t freeze, the fragility of urban infrastructure becomes frighteningly clear.
There was an interesting piece on the BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent yesterday from someone who has covered natural disasters in India. He said that the response there tended to be much quicker (e.g. after the tsunami camps were set up within a couple of days) – partly because they were more accustomed to dealing with disaster, and partly (he conjectured) because their culture is more focussed on ‘we’ than ‘me’. I’m wondering what a country that holds rugged individualism to be such a virtue will make of this extreme demonstration of people’s interdependence. And I’m also wondering why in a country where so many espouse low taxes and small government, so many are now upset that the government is not providing.
And I’m wondering whether this might make officialdom take a more realistic approach to the environment – but I doubt it. There seems to be something about human attitudes to risk that makes most of us unwilling to confront the possibility of disaster until after it happens. Say if they had actually laid on buses to get everyone out before the storm hit – and then the damage had been less than expected. You can bet that someone somewhere would be decrying the ‘overreaction’. Uncertainty appears to be politically unacceptable.
I have found a couple of aspects of the UK coverage disturbing. Is it just me, or is there a hint of schadenfreude in the cataloguing of the mismanagement, of seeing some of the realities behind the holier-than-thou American rhetoric of freedom and opportunity laid bare? Are there really no stories from the Superdome of people banding together to raise morale, or was it really all suicide, rape and starvation?
And, given that it’s obvious that rebuilding the infrastructure and helping those made homeless to rebuild their lives is going to be a massive undertaking – why has there been NO mention here of where to send donations? Perhaps it’s just that our aid charities operate in the developing world and are not in a position to offer help – though I don’t see why they can’t set up a donation line over here for the US Red Cross so that donations could be made tax efficiently.
Perhaps it’s assumed that a rich nation can look after its own – but I find that problematic on two counts. Firstly because a person in need is in need whether they are surrounded by rich neighbours or poor neighbours – the heart reaching out to those in need does not apply means testing. And secondly because it reveals a hint of colonialism in the response to the tsunami - those poor people need our help, but these poor people don’t. Why not? The tsunami hit cities as well as grass-hutted tropical islands – but I wonder if the images of beaches and lush vegetation leads us to assume, even subconsciously, that the Asian countries have less technical and organisational expertise to deal with a disaster than does the US. The immediate response would suggest otherwise – perhaps from now on we’ll be less snobbish about learning from ‘developing’ countries, and more able to see people as people.
