Thursday, September 01, 2005
Podcast NYC: Pop Culture Rant #34
MAYDAY! The city of New Orleans, Louisiana has sunk and several cities on the Gulf Coast have been demolished. Several hundred thousand people are refugees and it can actually get worse over the next few days. I wish it was a joke or an exaggeration but it isn't. Hurricane Katrina cut through a large swath of the Gulf Coast of the Unites States like a 145 mile per hour buzzsaw. The devasation is massive and now levee breaches in the city of New Orleans have made a bad situation much worse. Now is not the time for political sniping and ridiculous finger pointing. It's time to get off of our butts and help any way we can. I'm urging people to donate money to the American Red Cross fund for Hurricane 2005 Relief. Listen for more details on the effects and aftermath of what is turning out to be the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.
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3 comments:
i'd like to thank you for what was a great and very informative podcast. i live in australia and only heard a bit of what has been happening via our local media.
i'm a student and pay my way by working in a supermarket. i over hear a lot of conversations during my shifts and i've found the difference between people's reactions to this disaster compared to the tsunami amazing. right after the tsunami hit our store started collecting money for the relief, customers were more than happy to donate more money than they were spending on their weekly shop and everyone was talking about it and how terrible it was.
this time around we have no collection happening and hardly anyone is talking about it. today i did have two ladies at my checkout who were discussing it, they were talking about how irresponsible americans are for looting even saying that it was "the american way", as if everyone in new orleans were involved. people over here seem to have the attitude that american can look after themselves. i think to some extend it is because in the media we are seeing a lot more of the looting rather than the families and people who have done nothing wrong and need our help.
Another Aussie here...and yes there is a huge difference between the reactions to the two disasters...it is a little bit understandable in that most areas affected by the tsunami would be generally considered "third world" or "developing" countries whereas America is a very rich country. Unless you have been to the affected areas you would be unlikely to have any knowledge that these are areas where there are a huge percentage of poor people...Poverty is just not something that we associate with America or Americans. The media has not done a good job here in informing people of the people who are affected by this tragedy so you need to go online and find some bloggs or alternative media sites to get some decent information about this disaster. People around the world who are relying on mainstream media for information on this are going to remain ignorant of the true nature of this disaster and the people who are affected.
The other fact which I suspect is affecting people's capacity to donate money is that people have donated a LOT of money to worthy causes recently. I do volunteer work for the Salvation Army and we have noticed a huge downturn in local donations of $$ this year due to the tsunami and the huge public relations push by World Vision here this year. The kind of people who normally donate (not the really rich people, usually the middle and working classes are much more generous) simply don't have the disposable income left over...with Christmas due in a couple of months and the price of petrol sky-rocketing people simply have less $$ to donate
Great comments. Thank you for listening in and joining the conversation.
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