(no subject)

[avevale_intelligencer]

I had something fluffy and non-controversial ready to write for today, but it’s eluded me. Someone has got to come up with some gadget to fit to a steering wheel so you can (touch-)type while driving...

Katrina. Somehow it seems worse to me because it’s New Orleans. I know that isn’t necessarily rational, that it would have been just as devastating, or maybe more so, if it had hit San Francisco, or New York, or Atlanta, or Spokane, or Wyattsville, Kansas, or any populated area. But New Orleans seems to be special to me for some reason I can't analyse. Never been there. I have friends in the surrounding area (most of whom seem to be okay, thank goodness), but not in the place itself as far as I know. Not all that keen on jazz. Reasonably fond of Anne Rice’s earlier books, but not crazed about them. Why should this feel more personal to me because it’s this city and not another?

In reference to the comments about it being the wrath of god, someone asked (sarcastically) why those areas would be hit by divine vengeance when they mostly voted for Bush. That question seems to me (equally sarcastically) to answer itself, but I really don’t want to go there. God doesn’t make cars crash, or throw hurricanes at people, nor does s/he punish people for believing in something, however right or wrong. (Otherwise I would be a small charred spot somewhere.) Life isn’t that unfair. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

I’m still not convinced that the storm wasn’t somehow exacerbated, or diverted from its natural course, by some knock-on effect of global climate change, but there are probably too many indeterminate variables to be certain either way, and no moral to be drawn in any case. Global warming is not the fault of any one nation or any one individual, and certainly not of the people who died or lost their homes or families or livelihoods to the storm.

My heart goes out to everyone whose life has been hit by this horrible catastrophe.

Normal fluff will be resumed when I remember what it was I was going to write...

Comments

[aunty_marion]

...some gadget to fit to a steering wheel ...

They're called voice recorders, and I want one too. When I can afford it... :) The only trouble is, you then have to do the audio-typing thing to transcribe it.

The Times says that hurricanes tend to come in cycles, and we're on an upswing in the cycle. Also, there was no El Nino this year, and the El Nino tends to make hurricanes less powerful by redistributing the warm air. Whether the lack of an El Nino is attributable to climate change, I couldn't say.

[armb.livejournal.com]

> just as devastating, or maybe more so, if it had hit San Francisco, or New York, or Atlanta, or Spokane, or Wyattsville, Kansas, or any populated area.

Those aren't largely below sea-level though. I know that's not really what you meant, but the same storm wouldn't have caused equal devastation elsewhere.
As filkertom put it Everybody kinda breathed a sigh of relief yesterday morning. The worst had passed. And then the water kept rising.

[shannachie.livejournal.com]

I was in New Orleans in 1978. A beautiful place. There was music in the streets and children danced. Cosy pubs with bands playing 30ies style jazz. Wonderful food. Old buidlings - I'm a sucker for 18th and 19th century architecture.
To have all this gone is a tragedy. I feel so very sorry for the people who died and for the people who lost and are still in danger. But I also grieve for the kind of ambience I remember, the feeling that pervaded the city, old jazz and laissez-faire, a little- onn-standard, a little sultry, a little erotic. Very different from other US cities.
One can rebuild houses. I don't know whether one can rebuild atmosphere.

[singlemaltsilk.livejournal.com]

I feel it too. I think it's the timelessness of the place -- at least, once you get off Bourbon Street. Wandering the tiny side streets, the markets, the gardens. Music everywhere. I'm wondering what's happened to the lovely St. James Hotel that we stayed in last March. I wonder what's happened to the people who worked there, and who helped to make our stay so memorable.

[elorie.livejournal.com]

New Orleans is magic, incarnate, while still being a real place with all the problems that frail human reality has. That's all.

The French Quarter...the oldest part of the city...is on high ground, and last I heard was not flooded. So, something will survive.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

You hit it. I cried when I read those words.

[nelladarren.livejournal.com]

I feel quite the same.
There's one aspect of the catastrophe, the suffering of so many people, that could have been anywhere. But the other aspect is really that I felt New Orleans being something like a place of specific culture, as if the pyramids where being destroyed or something. New Orleans was always one of few places in the US I really wanted to see one time.
Also the news sound like news in a science fiction movie to me, you know, like "Armageddon" and the like. "New Orleans ceased to exist and this morning the 70 years old former pop star Michael Jackson died in bed."