(no subject)
Insurance companies refer to natural disasters like Katrina as "acts of God."
I hate that.
God didn't want this. He didn't send a hurricane to the Gulf Coast for vengeance, or to right some great cosmic wrong.
It just happened. It doesn't matter why, or how; not right now, anyway. And it's certainly no one's fault.
But what's happened since Katrina left death and destruction in her wake... that's another story.
People need rescuing. People need food, and water, and some way to tell their loved ones they're all right.
What they're getting is... nothing, right now. They're getting a national guard out of its element, looters, snipers trying to pick off sick and injured people attempting to go to a better-equipped hospital.
They're getting excuses from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who is still not responding adequately, four days on. They are getting a lame-duck administration who is sending too little, too late.
They are dying. And killing one another. And ignoring those in need.
After September 11, there was a sense of cohesiveness, in the United States. I'm not talking about any sort of militant desire for revenge, but rather a sense of understanding. A willingness to help someone because they need it, not because they have something to offer you. Hold my hand, please, we said to one another. Strangers. I'm afraid. And we did.
There is not so much of that, today.
As I went about my errands, this morning, I kept hearing the advertisement that Kroger was accepting donations for the Red Cross. I probably heard it ten times, in the space of two hours. So when I went to buy my groceries a little while ago, I asked the cashier where to donate.
She looked at me blankly, so I repeated my question. She called over her manager.
He looked thrown. "Oh, that. We don't have the paperwork for that yet. Maybe tomorrow."
I asked if he could take my donation, to put it in with the rest when things were ready.
No, he said. He could not.
~~~~
Alex Chadwick, of National Public Radio, distilled the essence of my heartbreak acutely well. "We are always, in this country," he said this afternoon, "on a search for our national soul."
Someday, I hope we'll find it.
But that day doesn't seem to be today.
I hate that.
God didn't want this. He didn't send a hurricane to the Gulf Coast for vengeance, or to right some great cosmic wrong.
It just happened. It doesn't matter why, or how; not right now, anyway. And it's certainly no one's fault.
But what's happened since Katrina left death and destruction in her wake... that's another story.
People need rescuing. People need food, and water, and some way to tell their loved ones they're all right.
What they're getting is... nothing, right now. They're getting a national guard out of its element, looters, snipers trying to pick off sick and injured people attempting to go to a better-equipped hospital.
They're getting excuses from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who is still not responding adequately, four days on. They are getting a lame-duck administration who is sending too little, too late.
They are dying. And killing one another. And ignoring those in need.
After September 11, there was a sense of cohesiveness, in the United States. I'm not talking about any sort of militant desire for revenge, but rather a sense of understanding. A willingness to help someone because they need it, not because they have something to offer you. Hold my hand, please, we said to one another. Strangers. I'm afraid. And we did.
There is not so much of that, today.
As I went about my errands, this morning, I kept hearing the advertisement that Kroger was accepting donations for the Red Cross. I probably heard it ten times, in the space of two hours. So when I went to buy my groceries a little while ago, I asked the cashier where to donate.
She looked at me blankly, so I repeated my question. She called over her manager.
He looked thrown. "Oh, that. We don't have the paperwork for that yet. Maybe tomorrow."
I asked if he could take my donation, to put it in with the rest when things were ready.
No, he said. He could not.
~~~~
Alex Chadwick, of National Public Radio, distilled the essence of my heartbreak acutely well. "We are always, in this country," he said this afternoon, "on a search for our national soul."
Someday, I hope we'll find it.
But that day doesn't seem to be today.