Fear the Crab

I stayed up well past midnight, absorbing news of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan.  I mainly watched Al Jazeera’s live feed because local and national media are woefully biased and typically like to interject emotion into what should be an objective representation of events.  International news has its fair share, of course, but on the whole I find Al Jazeera to at least give me more fact than feeling.
Continued ~

I had these thoughts during a chat session. I was at work, which is why I was chatting in the first place. Mind you, this is an abridged version, not an actual transcript of the conversation, but I think the gist of it still comes across. The statements in parentheses are those issued by other people. Mine are in quotation marks.

(maybe a little exaggerated with the US, coz the media is constantly broadcasting everything that’s happening, and giving it its own flavour, I did honestly think the govt responses were slower than my own hometown, and the shooting was just plain ridiculous.)

“Sometimes people just have to realize that the rest of the world is watching what you do and judging you.
The hypocrisy of the US is that we judge everybody, even our own, yet we hate being judged.”

(hmm.. oh well, isnt that wat everybody does?)

“Not to the extent that the US does it. We judge other nations, tell them they’re evil, or poor, but we say “screw you” to the UN when it tells us we’re doing something wrong.
The govt response was horrid, the shootings were insane, but the relief workers who were there instantly deserve credit.
In any crisis, when we look to the actions of the “little people” we see tremendous courage. They’re not doing it for political gain or global status.
The good people attempt to work with what they have left and provide as much as they can. They don’t say “We don’t have helicopters because so-and-so used ’em in another country”
They don’t announce the shortcoming and blame it on someone else. They just act.
The govt response was slow, I think, because people were trying to explain why things failed, instead of just “doing” things.
Just once I wish I could see someone in power say to reporters, “I can’t talk now I have to go rescue people!”
Or turn to the camera crew/reporter and say, “Instead of filming me, why don’t you lend a hand?”
I’m sure if we all saw that clip on tv, we would think that guy is pretty serious about the situation.”

I dunno. It was just something I was saying, and I felt I should write it down.

Well, the campaign has started. There’s not much to talk about that hasn’t already been talked about. Maile asked why I continue to listen to the news radio and watch CNN, and I told her it’s because 1) I want to know, and 2) I want to listen to what the media says and where the veil of truth may lie. In other words, I take whatever the media says with a grain of salt, trying to see how their choice of words and images can or could influence those watching/listening it.

In the meantime, life goes on as usual here. I still have a job to do, actually two jobs to do, and they’re not going to give time off just so I can sit and watch the news and write my thoughts in this journal.

I wanted to do homework today, catch up on the things I need to take care of.

But I just didn’t have the heart for it. Not after waking up to the terrible news about the Columbia. I felt a bit somber the rest of the day.