Question of the Day

I had a really disturbing experience yesterday on the bus to work. I was reading the Metro, a free paper available at all subway and bus stops, and I came to the daily "Question of the Day", which is a question posed to everyday people on the street on current events. Questions can range anywhere from "Do you approve of the war in Iraq" to "Should the Red Sox get rid of Keith Foulke". Normally, the responses are pretty predictable: the usually liberal-minded students will say that they don't approve of the war, or some Boston chowderhead will say that the Sox should get rid of "that friggin guy; he's gahbage, my 17-yeah old son could pitch bettah than that bum." Not really deep or unpredictable responses in most cases. However, yesterday's question was "Do you think the media has devoted too much coverage to the hurricane on the gulf coast?" In case you haven't heard, Hurricane Katrina has killed over 100 people, destroyed the homes of thousands of people, and has left 80% of New Orleans under at least 5 feet of water. The Lousiana Superdome was declared a public refuge for the nearly 30,000 people forced to evacuate their homes, and Katrina started to destroy the roof of that building, causing many people to feel unsafe even in this temporary home.

Why did I even bring up this "Question of the Day"? Here are three of the responses:
"That's all I've seen on the news since yesterday. It makes it sound pretty intense."
"Yes, but you shouldn't believe everything the media says."
"Yes, definitely. They're making it to be the biggest deal... but this happens every summer."

These answers are just one of the reasons why I hate so many people. "Intense"? The Yankees playing the Red Sox in September is "intense". This is a life-changing, catastrophic event for tens of thousands of people! "You shouldn't believe everything the media says"? Well, that's definitely a true statement, but in this context? This isn't Bill O'Reilly saying that anti-war protesters are weakening our country, or Bill Maher saying that the legalization of marijuana will improve the economy. In this instance, the media is relaying to us the horrors that some of our fellow Americans are going through: death, injury, homes being destroyed, loved ones missing and unheard from... These are things that we need to hear, and things that we need to address. I mean, the media must be somewhat believeable if Mr. Bush is going to take two days off from his 5-week summer vacation to help develop and coordinate some relief efforts. I mean, nobody makes Dubya leave the ranch unless he absolutely has to. And as far as "this happening every summer", well, if thousands of homes were destroyed and towns were flooded every summer, then I would think that New Orleans would be able to plan a little better for this sort of thing. But it turns out that this is one of the worst natural disasters that our country has ever seen... not exactly an annual event.

I guess I said all of that to say that sometimes it scares me that so many people (and I'm extrapolating a bit from this small sample of people surveyed) can be either so ignorant of the world around them, or totally uncaring towards problems in the world that don't directly affect them.

I don't really consider myself a social activist by any means, but... if you can do anything to help the New Orleans-ites, I think its worth it. I'm probably the brokest (is that even a word? most broke?) person around, but I'm going to send the red cross a donation... at least think about it. And even if you don't send them money, at least keep them in your thoughts and prayers, and don't consider the media coverage of their plight "unnecessary" and "not a big deal".