Comments | bluebellrock: Victorian Bushfires. Sidney Poitier.

bluebellrock

Victorian Bushfires. Sidney Poitier.

Feb 13, 2009 21:10

For a week now, I've been watching Ian Ross heading up Seven News in the Victorian Bushfire region, tonight from Wandong. Now I'm watching In the Heat of the Night. This is the absolute best post I can do under the circumstances. I just can't concentrate. I have to make dinner (it's 9pm!) but I don't want to miss this film. I love Sidney Poitier ( Read more... )

vintage, bushfire, australia, acting, movies

Comments 5

life_and_times February 13 2009, 10:35:48 UTC

What are you making for dinner, ey?

bluebellrock February 13 2009, 17:40:40 UTC

I was going to make a fry-up (eggs, bacon bought especially, tomatoes, mushies, mayyybe handcut pan-fries) 'cos it was so cold and wet outside and that's cosy food yo! But I really didn't want to miss a minute of In the Heat of the Night, much less 25 mins, so I made nothing and we starved. Well, I did. Todd had been snacking. When the movie was finally over - at like 10:30pm - I made a quick Vegemite on toast with a glass of milk and ate it in bed 'cos that's so stylish. But you know that combo is the yums! What did you have? A normal meal probably.

leighton February 13 2009, 15:06:40 UTC

The fires and their devastation are getting some press here in the US, but talk radio dismisses the high death toll as "something that would never happen here". Enraging, since this comes from the land of Katrina.

bluebellrock February 13 2009, 18:21:09 UTC

Funny you mention Katrina because just yesterday I was considering the difference between the behaviour of everyone (authorities, survivors and the public) in the aftermath of each: societal breakdown during Katrina there (although I know there was a lot of generosity from the public), and a show of unprecedented generosity and banding-together here. The difference has gotta be in the way authorities responded and aid was offered in the first instance. It's a matter of the respect and attention both disasters both warranted. Not to imply human nature shows only its perfect side here: there've been looters nicking God knows what's left from fire-ravaged homes of the dead, and from survivors in burnt-out shells of homes, the lucky ones of whom have only just been provided with a generator, petrol and not much else (yet). And there have been copycat arsonists lighting fires while people are dying in the original ones. Subsequent fires that have killed scores more people. I did wonder what the differences might have been if this part of ( ... )

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Re: In our case... bluebellrock February 14 2009, 17:46:14 UTC

Too true, that. I totally agree, but what about the issue of race? Don't you think it was as much about race as it was about poverty? Not to imply the two aren't connected, but how much faster would GWB and FIMA have responded if they'd been mostly poor whiteys? Slightly, surely ( ... )