June 20, 2008

• Do you remember? …

  • January 28, 1986 – The day the space shuttle Challenger exploded
  • August 1992 – The day Hurricane Andrew devastated Florida and surrounding states
  • September 11, 2001 – The day the Twin Towers fell
  • August 2005 – The day Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana, Mississippi and surrounding states
  • Finally, what about the Great Flood of 1993 – the what?  Flood?  1993?  Where?  What?  How?

  It’s interesting to try and follow the current flooding issues happening AGAIN in the Midwest.  Why you ask?  Because you CAN’T!!!  It’s been well over a week and there’s little news coverage on this (at least in this area).  Do you really think people are going to remember the second 500-year flood that happened 15 years after the previous 500-year flood (that being the Great Flood of 1993).  And for the record, I do not remember the Great Flood of 1993 but I do remember the others.

  Why is that?  Personally, in this town I blame the liberal media.  Think about it.  What made Hurricane Katrina so interesting to follow before it actually did anything.  There was a really cool looking weather graphic.  Look at the nice swirls and that nicely formed eye moving across the ocean.  We knew it was going to happen.  We knew it was going to be bad.  We had a great looking graphic to show everyone.  What does the flood have?  It’s been raining for awhile, now the rivers are surging and the levees might get breached.  We know its going to happen but possibly not and no pretty graphs to help tell the story.

  The next thing about Katrina was the poor decision making by the local and state governments.  Their failure, though it was made to look like they were the victims, showed how people stayed and huddled in the Super Dome or the New Orleans Convention Center.  They knew the dangers and decided to not leave.  The local and state governments did nothing and then the Federal Government reacted too slowly.  Now that’s news.  People in trouble because they did nothing or decided too late to do something and well it was too late.  All forms of government look stupid because they did nothing (but remember the state and local governments were the “victims”) 

  The last thing I could think of were all the celebrities.  There was an outcry from the those who like to mock the government and their faces and words were all over the airwaves.  From criticism to photo ops in “helping” to rebuild after the devastation, there were celebrities on the scene to show the plight of those afflicted.

  Look, I’m not trying to trivialize those who were affected by Katrina.  It was horrible.  Poor decision making was made all around and the evil of people really did come out.  But look at the differences between our last National disaster and our current one.  One was made to be news worthy and one just isn’t – yet both are and should be news worthy.

  You look at the local and state decision making and they actual are doing the correct things.  The government working and for the people?  That’s not news worthy.  People are being displaced and some have died.  Still not on the scale as Katrina mostly because people listened!  Still not all that news worthy.  You hear stories of people, prisoners, anyone helping to sandbag and make the levees higher to help save towns and the surrounding area.  That’s news worthy but in a make-you-feel-good-way so that’s not front page news.  Lastly, have you seen any celebrities sandbagging?  Any on the tube helping out or making public statements.  Nope.  Nadda.  Zilch.

  As good as it is to hear that those in the Midwest are coping and working together to help prevent further damage, I wonder if this is really the state of America?  The fact that we don’t care except when we can see the failures of others (for some reason the first few weeks of American Idol comes to mind) and/or the helping hand of our celebrities?

  Seems kind sad. 

  • 9:52 pm
  • 1 Comment