Robert Seeberger wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Land" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, September 04, 2005 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: The Doom That Came To N'Warlins - II
On Sep 4, 2005, at 7:00 PM, Robert Seeberger wrote:
From: "Dave Land" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
This an AOL chat room. It has never been the kind of place where
people come to say "OMG, I can't BELIEVE what I'm seeing on TV!!!"
Of course, I meant to say "This is _not_ an AOL chat room."
(rest of both messages clipped)
Here's the thing, Robert: You said that it appeared that you and
Damon and Debbie appeared to you to be the only ones on-list who
cared about actual people.
I hear you Dave and am sorry it came out that way, and I partially
agree. The part I don't agree with is I don't believe the majority of
people grieve by ignoring an issue.
I especially do not believe that of this group. I just don't see
denial as being part of the makeup here. But I think Dan made a good
point when he spoke about waiting for someone else to speak up first.
I think that may be more operative here than anything else. Perhaps,
with all the flaming and fighting that has occurred here, people have
just been a bit timid about posting subjects that could become
politicized?
I don't know.
I do know that it really bothered me after the tsunami that it never
was discussed, and I don't think varying grief modes can explain that.
People were more than willing to discuss politics and religion. People
were willing to fight onlist, curse at each other, and rattle swords
to the point of being abusive. When Katrina did all this damage and
the authorities were doing little and no one here even mentioned it in
political terms it pained me. I think highly of the people here, but
it was like watching Nero fiddle.
1) I wasn't going to say much of anything first.
2) Watching FIVE MINUTES of news coverage had me too upset to think
straight for the next three hours. I wasn't going to sit and type about
that. Got enough of a downer with news coverage AND all the traffic on
other lists where lots of people are actually DOING things in Austin to
help the evacuees the city now has dumped on it.
Maybe I should have sent you the info to subscribe, and you'd have seen
what I was already up to my ears in? :)
3) I've been frustrated that, given my current life situation, I really
CAN'T do much besides a) wring my hands, which does NO ONE any good, and
b) throw some money at the problem. I've got 3 young children and I'm
far enough out that I can't really get away during nap time or anything
to actually get anything done, because the round trip will burn up 80
minutes right there. :(
Now, if one of the neighbors takes in some hurricane refugees, I'll be
in a much better position to help someone directly. About all I can do
is get information from one group of people to another group of people
-- and I don't know that anyone here can really act on the information I
have ready access to that they wouldn't have anyway.
4) What with one thing and another, I really needed the camping trip I
took this weekend for mental health reasons. So I wasn't jumping in
earlier. :)
I'm sorry if my gas-price saga upset you when I had nothing else to say.
I've been saying plenty, in other forums and in person to various
people. But I didn't know where to start on the whole thing (bitch
about how I can't finish the novel I'm in, because it's too damn painful
to visualize a tidal wave washing through Virginia up to Front Royal
because I've been seeing too much media coverage of actual people in a
situation of much less total destruction? NO!) and didn't want to jump in.
And it's all over many of the blogs I read -- should I be just repeating
what I've read there? I have nothing new to add to anything BUT the
gas-price saga right now. And it frustrates me that I haven't been able
to do much else -- but it's the life I'm in right now, that I have
nothing to offer but money at the moment, and nobody wants to hear about
how much other people are sending where to help out, do they?
I think what happens here is, we discuss things we don't have other
outlets for now. And with the Katrina stuff, I have nothing *but* other
outlets for it -- everything else seems to have been pre-empted, and
it's actually a relief to read something a lot pettier somewhere. If my
favorite friend's blog for links is nothing but Katrina relief links for
2 days, I'm going to turn elsewhere for a break from it. And, whatever
else happens, there's a certain amount of entertainment here. :)
I think the third factor in the list not being what it was is that
people are blogging and having the same sorts of discussions we had here
years ago -- and they're having it in places where they can actually
remove the flame content from existence if they want to.
And that's about all the thinking I can do right now. Sorry if the post
isn't cohesive, but I've been typing against a nap-ending deadline and
didn't get enough sleep on Sunday night due to someone who will never
again start screaming at a field of tents for everyone to WAKE UP! and
other things before 9AM when most of the people in said tents were up
past 3AM (or if he does, will be ejected from the campground very promptly).
Julia
Life Is Too Interesting Maru
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