I need this explained to me in smaller words...
Alt.poly argument revolving around the fires in Victoria, do not clink through if the fires are an emotionally sensitive topic for you.
I need someone to explain how, in any universe, my description of Steve Pope (patronising git with no bloody clue) is not accurate. For bonus points, I think this might be a sideways example of something somewhat like cultural appropriation, or generic privileged cluelessness not understanding there's a lot more to a subject than they think.
Subject: Re: wildfires
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:02:15 +0000 (UTC)
From: spope33@speedymail.org (Steve Pope)
Organization: a2i network
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
References: <498f611f$0$20975$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au> <49911f59$0$3253$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au> <87d4dqoj5z.fsf@windlord.stanford.edu>
Russ Allbery wrote:
>"Ruth Lawrence" writes:
>> Yes. It looks like well over 200, now.
>> Still I am surprised it was not ten times as many.
>> Entire towns were wiped of the map.
>It's remarkably hard to kill significantly large numbers of people. I'm
>always surprised by the low body counts after natural disasters, but even
>Katrina didn't kill anywhere near as many people as one might expect.
>I lived through the 49er Fire in northern California and have some idea of
>what people are living through (we had to evacuate, although our house
>didn't burn -- the fire came within a couple of streets of us). Everyone
>in the area has my deepest sympathies.
There was no "stay and defend" taken hold then.
Steve
How is this not either
a) snide implications about the casualty level in Australia being due to 'stay and defend' policies
b) misplaced empathy towards Russ' situation in a quite different fire, rather than Ruth's (and Australians') situation in the current fires
c) complete clueless blathering about the first thing that sprung to mind relevant to Russ' post, ignoring what it would look like in a larger context?
DISCLAIMER: my parents were among those sort-of affected by the Canberra bushfires in 2003. They live reasonably close to the worst-affected areas, but no-one realised how wide the firefront was, or how fast it was moving, until it was too late. By the time it was clear the fire was going to be really bad, I don't think my parents could actually have left even if they wanted to - the only road out of the area that might have been safe I expect to have been required by emergency personnel and people evacuating from the areas under much more direct threat.
Additionally, I expect it's because they (and everyone else) stayed and tried to minimise/control the fire spread as much as possible, that the fires passed through the nearby bushland and didn't spread to any houses in that region, thereby I imagine decreasing the total amount of damage done by the fires, and reducing the risk of injury and death to others living further from the bushland. My mother said it was somewhat terrifying to realise that if their houses were not to burn down, they (the people on that street) were going to have to be the ones to protect them, because there were no spare emergency personnel to help them. And she says they're lucky the wind stayed consistently westerly, because if it had turned even slightly southerly, they would have had no chance, whatever they'd tried.
There are certainly stories from Duffy (the worst-affected suburb) of houses quite far from bushland, where the owners were away (the 2003 fires came through on a Saturday, so people may have gone away for the weekend if not on holiday), hit by long-range embers, and burning enough to put other houses nearby at risk. And from the current fires, they do have cases of people being burnt to death in their cars, trying to leave their homes, where they would have been safer. (In case it's not clear, the firefront can travel faster than a car can drive depending on wind strength.)
So yes, I am very, very touchy about anyone implying that 'stay and defend' policies are misguided, certainly in the Australian context.
And if he wasn't implying that, what was the point of the comment? Why on earth go to the effort of making an entire post for that single line, and then claim we're* oversensitive because we expect "perfect" performances of empathy? When this is a Grand Fail?
*we being alt.poly Aussies bothered by his comment.
I'm ranting here because the argument has upset Ruth Lawrence, who is more closely affected by the current fires than I am, and I don't want to make things worse for her on alt.poly.
I need someone to explain how, in any universe, my description of Steve Pope (patronising git with no bloody clue) is not accurate. For bonus points, I think this might be a sideways example of something somewhat like cultural appropriation, or generic privileged cluelessness not understanding there's a lot more to a subject than they think.
Subject: Re: wildfires
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:02:15 +0000 (UTC)
From: spope33@speedymail.org (Steve Pope)
Organization: a2i network
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
References: <498f611f$0$20975$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au> <49911f59$0$3253$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au> <87d4dqoj5z.fsf@windlord.stanford.edu>
Russ Allbery wrote:
>"Ruth Lawrence" writes:
>> Yes. It looks like well over 200, now.
>> Still I am surprised it was not ten times as many.
>> Entire towns were wiped of the map.
>It's remarkably hard to kill significantly large numbers of people. I'm
>always surprised by the low body counts after natural disasters, but even
>Katrina didn't kill anywhere near as many people as one might expect.
>I lived through the 49er Fire in northern California and have some idea of
>what people are living through (we had to evacuate, although our house
>didn't burn -- the fire came within a couple of streets of us). Everyone
>in the area has my deepest sympathies.
There was no "stay and defend" taken hold then.
Steve
How is this not either
a) snide implications about the casualty level in Australia being due to 'stay and defend' policies
b) misplaced empathy towards Russ' situation in a quite different fire, rather than Ruth's (and Australians') situation in the current fires
c) complete clueless blathering about the first thing that sprung to mind relevant to Russ' post, ignoring what it would look like in a larger context?
DISCLAIMER: my parents were among those sort-of affected by the Canberra bushfires in 2003. They live reasonably close to the worst-affected areas, but no-one realised how wide the firefront was, or how fast it was moving, until it was too late. By the time it was clear the fire was going to be really bad, I don't think my parents could actually have left even if they wanted to - the only road out of the area that might have been safe I expect to have been required by emergency personnel and people evacuating from the areas under much more direct threat.
Additionally, I expect it's because they (and everyone else) stayed and tried to minimise/control the fire spread as much as possible, that the fires passed through the nearby bushland and didn't spread to any houses in that region, thereby I imagine decreasing the total amount of damage done by the fires, and reducing the risk of injury and death to others living further from the bushland. My mother said it was somewhat terrifying to realise that if their houses were not to burn down, they (the people on that street) were going to have to be the ones to protect them, because there were no spare emergency personnel to help them. And she says they're lucky the wind stayed consistently westerly, because if it had turned even slightly southerly, they would have had no chance, whatever they'd tried.
There are certainly stories from Duffy (the worst-affected suburb) of houses quite far from bushland, where the owners were away (the 2003 fires came through on a Saturday, so people may have gone away for the weekend if not on holiday), hit by long-range embers, and burning enough to put other houses nearby at risk. And from the current fires, they do have cases of people being burnt to death in their cars, trying to leave their homes, where they would have been safer. (In case it's not clear, the firefront can travel faster than a car can drive depending on wind strength.)
So yes, I am very, very touchy about anyone implying that 'stay and defend' policies are misguided, certainly in the Australian context.
And if he wasn't implying that, what was the point of the comment? Why on earth go to the effort of making an entire post for that single line, and then claim we're* oversensitive because we expect "perfect" performances of empathy? When this is a Grand Fail?
*we being alt.poly Aussies bothered by his comment.
I'm ranting here because the argument has upset Ruth Lawrence, who is more closely affected by the current fires than I am, and I don't want to make things worse for her on alt.poly.