My friend Dan wrote an interesting post on his experience leaving New Orleans during Katrina and starting a new life here in Des Moines, which I would quote, but it’s short enough that I’d be quoting the whole thing. So you should just go read it. I think it speaks well of Dan that he’s able to add some much-needed optimism to an awful situation.
It appears the citing of a real live reporter I mentioned earlier is not an isolated incident. Salon has a video capturing several citings of actual reporters. It almost makes me want to watch the news again. But I'm not holding my breath on this lasting long. Too soon, I expect, these reporters will return to their desks where they can comfortably forget about actual issues and get back to worrying about ratings and revenue.
I think it was just last week that I subscribed to Dave Roger's blog after he said some seemingly intelligent things over on Shelley Power's blog. Two days ago I saw that he had a new post and I went to read it, but after reading a few paragraphs, I saw that it was quite long and put it away. My mistake. Lucky for me, Shelley read the whole thing and wrote that It is by far the best work he has ever done, and one of the best writings I’ve read this year.
So I went back and read the whole thing tonight, and I can now confirm that it is indeed well worth the read. Maybe it's just because it's so timely, but right now it seems not just one of, but the best writing I've read this year. It's called Change. Go read it. If you find your attention start to waver at the beginning as mine did, skip straight to When I was executive officer of USS JOHN HANCOCK (DD-981), I had to perform my first burial at sea.
Dave Rogers has spotted a creature rarely seen in America: a real reporter (video). Real reporters can be distinguished from the more common species of imitation reporters by their ability to hold government accountable.
Today I listened to some radio shows I had recorded last weekend from the local NPR station. The shows are interspersed with short news updates from last week on topics such as problems with the new Iraq constitution, conflict between anti-war and pro-war protesters near Bush's vacation in Texas, threats of violence between Israel and Palestine, and of course the then-impending hurricane. I found myself feeling nostalgic for last week, when the most immediate problems were the thousands needlessly dying on the other side of the world. I look forward to next week when, I hope, the accountability will begin. It has to begin at some point, right?
...right?
When you're in a car and you see you're about to hit something, it's important not to overcompensate and swerve too far in the other direction, else you might run into something else. It's hard to think about this rationally, though, when overcome by the fear of an impending car accident. Fear is a useful motivator in emergency situations, but the rest of the time it tends to cause problems. We can see recent evidence of this in Iraq and America. When we spend so much energy worrying about what might happen, we can easily lose sight of what is happening.