Is there a disconnect with your real life and

what is on TV? There is in my life.

 

For the last five days the Gulf Coast has been a scene of chaos on a biblical scale. Total social breakdown in the midst of the most staggering natural disaster scenes this country has seen in a long, long time. One would think that this would be THE TOPIC of conversation around the country. Maybe it is.

 

Though over the last few days I have noticed a real silence as if this is something that is only happening on TV. I've attended university classes where nary a word of the disaster was brought up by . I've shared small talk in bars without ever hearing the city of New Orleans mentioned. I've talked to new neighbors (I just moved) and still no mention. I go inside, turn on the TV, tap into the Internet and there is a very different story. I am on the Georgia coast which is not immune by any measure from receiving the same sort of whipping that has been inflicted upon the Gulf (we are still smack dab in the middle of hurricane season and Katrina will not be last and may not be the worst). So, maybe I'm just tuned out to the sounds that my fellow humans are making. Perhaps people really are freaking out concerning the disaster (perhaps they are pouring out their sympathy via the Internet). But I remember people TALKED about the Tsunami in my daily conversations when that happened but I have a feeling there is something much deeper and rather cold at work here, something that concerns the TYPE of people being affected by this. I mentioned the story to a woman tonight and she giggled about it (she was from Tallahassee and said, "yea, we passed a bunch of trucks heading there - tee-hee". I just looked at her and thought, "that's funny?").

 

I don't remember anyone giggling about 9/11 or the Tsunami. I read that the networks (I don't have cable TV) have run their regular schedules (soaps, court shows, cop shows, etc.) instead of covering this 24/7 thus leaving that to the 24/7 cable stations - who have a much smaller viewership - and thus psychologically delegating this story to the same level as the usual sensationalistic drivel those stations routinely cover (missing white girls and celebrity murder cases). Anyway, this is just my perception and you may be hearing about this from the people around you non-stop. I have not. The only story that I have seen get peoples attention this week here where I live are the rising gas prices and if the hurricane was brought up AT ALL it was only as a sub-reference to this aspect of the story.