Half Changed World

Dawn suggested that we talk about what we’re doing to help Katrina’s victims, because doing something is the best antidote to despair that we’ve got.

I gave some money to the Red Cross.  I deliberately requested that it go to the general disaster relief fund, not just to Katrina’s victims, because you never know what’s going to hit next week.  I want them to have the flexibility to use the money where it’s needed most.

I gathered up a big bag of summer clothes to donate — a bunch of stuff that won’t fit N by next summer, the shoes that he wore for about 3 weeks before outgrowing, some of my rejects from the great shorts hunt.  When I went to Target for dishwashing soap and milk, I also picked up a stack of underwear.  Because lots of people are donating used clothes, but who wants to wear used undies?  I’ll bring it all in to work, where one of my coworkers said she’d bring it to a friend whose company is sending a shipment to Texas.

(I know, I know.  All the experts say that money is the most useful thing to send.  But I’m hearing reports out of Houston and Baton Rouge that the shelves in the stores are bare.  And I think it’s a mistake to discount the human connection that grows when you make an in-kind donation and imagine the people who will be wearing those specific clothes or eating that food.  It sounds like the people coordinating services for the evacuees here in DC have all the donations they can handle.)

I volunteered at work to come in over the weekend to help answer the hotline for medical professionals who want to volunteer, but wasn’t called in.  I suspect they had many more volunteers than they could use.  (Grim note:  the list of professionals they use has been expanded as of today to include coroners, medical examiners, morticians…)

I gave blood a few weeks ago, so can’t give again right now.  But I’ll give when I can.  The Red Cross comes to our office building on a regular cycle, which makes it easy.

On re-reading, this doesn’t feel like very much, not in the scale of the disaster.  But the idea is that it’s a big country, and a bigger world, and if we all do the little that we feel able to do, it will add up to a lot.

Moxie wrote an interesting post contrasting the leadership shown on 9/11 with the lack of it this week:

"What do they need?" we asked.

They had an answer for that, Rudy & Company. They told us what was needed and where to bring it. When there wasn’t anything civilians could do, they told us. And we knew it was true. We knew we had to just sit tight until the rescuers needed something we could give."

I’m not sure that’s quite a fair comparison. 9/11 was logistically simple compared to the mess caused by Katrina.  There were very few wounded, and remarkably little damage outside the few blocks of the twin towers.  It was a mess getting everyone home that first day, but the weather was good, and except for emotional trauma, most people got away with nothing worse than blisters from walking a long distance.

Moreover, at least some of the answers that Rudy and co. gave that first week turned out to be wrong.  They said there was no reason to worry about the lingering cloud of dust.  (I was in the city six weeks later, and you could still taste it in the air.)  At best, this was an attempt to put a positive spin on an uncertain situation, to try to avoid panic and a mass exodus that would have damaged NYC for years.  At worst, it was an outright lie.

But yes, reading the coverage this week has made me appreciate what Giuliani did.  He managed to set an emotional tone of projecting confidence without seeming to take things less seriously than they deserved, of acknowledging the huge task ahead without seeming overwhelmed.  Bush still seems to be smirking and joking about Trent Lott’s house.  Nagin seems to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.  FEMA officials seem to have forgotten that no one cares about how hard they’re working, only the results.  And the results — or lack thereof — speak for themselves.

And if this report is true — if the food distribution center where Bush’s press conference was held was a fake, taken down as soon as he left — then heaven help us all.  I’m pretty cynical these days, but that’s beyond what I can wrap my head around.  I’m literally nauseous at the thought.  (Via Scrivenings and Phantom Scribbler)

Important Update: Respectful of Otters and Idealistic Pragmatist tracked down the German video that was cited as the source, and found that it did not say that the food distribution center was a fake.  It did report that the street cleaning crews in Biloxi only showed up when the President was there.  As Rivka wrote:

"But we need to be careful not to undercut the points we’re trying to make with even unintentional amplification. The news coming out of the U.S. Gulf Coast, including the biting commentary by ZDF news, is damning enough as it stands."

If you’ve reported on this story as fact, please update it.

Lots of bloggers are writing about Katrina today, and I wanted to point out some links that particularly spoke to me.

Hugo Schwyzer wonders if watching the news coverage of Katrina is like rubbernecking at a traffic accident.  He particuarly comments on voyerism and the role of television.  I haven’t watched any of the coverage on TV; I’m overwhelmed enough by the still images and stories.  I learned that lesson during the first Gulf war, and it’s been reinforced by being the mother of two small children, who don’t need to have these images in their heads.

Andrea at Beanie Baby suggests that we honor the victims by bearing witness to their suffering.  She writes:

"We are the love of god; ultimately, we don’t have the right to turn our faces away, to spare ourselves the grief of witnessing, if witnessing is all we can do. Because that would be to diminish god."

Teresa at Making Light discusses "looting" of food, and racism in media coverage.

Also via Making Light, Cherie Priest writes about "the socio-economics of disaster."  Or how not everyone has the resources to hop in their car and drive to a hotel room.

Teresa also links to a page discussing "jump kits" — the supplies that you should keep in a bag near the door in case you need to run.  If you can afford it, another set in your car is probably a good idea too.

Meanwhile, Jody at Raising WEG and Phantom Scribbler have been urging people to prepare for an avian flu pandemic.  I’m not quite ready to drink the kool aid, though.  Not because I think their doomsday scenarios are impossible.  But because I’m doubtful that any reasonable level of preparation I could make would really help.  I think it makes sense to have three days of non-perishable food and water, basic medical supplies, and flashlights on hand.  But if the power and water really go out for months on end, I don’t think a lot of tuna in the closet is going to help.  I don’t buy Dave Pollard’s argument that we’re headed for a catastrophic crash, but I do accept his point that if one happens, big cities and their suburbs are "too remote from food supplies and too dependent on energy, and will ultimately become unsafe and unsanitary as infrastructure becomes unsustainable and begins to deteriorate." 

By the way, I’m always amused by survivalists who think that gold is going to be useful means of trade at the end of the world.  I think they’ve read too much Ayn Rand.  If I really thought that civilization was about to collapse, I’d be stockpiling antibiotics and extra glasses, monofilament line and good knives. 

I’ve spent much of the day with a window on my screen open to a news source, checking the progress of Katrina and the misery that she’s inflicting on the people of Louisiana and Mississippi.  The rain may fall on the just and the unjust alike, the rich and the poor, but the rich have a lot more ability to get out of the way:

"Julie Paul, 57, sat on a porch yesterday with other residents of a poor neighborhood in central New Orleans who said they had no way to leave town. ‘None of us have any place to go,’ the AP quoted her as saying. ‘We’re counting on the Superdome. That’s our lifesaver.’"

And a leaky lifesaver it was.

The flooding reminded me of one of the best history books I’ve read, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, by John M. Barry.  Barry weaves together several stories: the (flawed) engineering masterpiece of the levees that controlled the Mississippi, the terror of the flood, the race and class tensions that affected the response, and the federal and private relief efforts that followed.  The title is multi-layered, referring both to the rampaging Mississippi, and (ironically) to the proverbial tide that lifts all boats. It’s literally a page-turner.  I’d definitely recommend it.

(As it happens, just last week, my dad loaned me Barry’s recent book on the 1918 flu epidemic.  It should be an interesting read.)

Red Cross Relief Efforts

Union for Reform Judaism Disaster Relief

Phantom Scribbler notes that today is the yahrtzeit, the death anniversary, of Raphael Lemkin, the man who invented the word "genocide" and spent his life fighting for it to be recognized as a crime.  She writes:

"Lemkin’s obsessive faith in the power of the law and words themselves to change our grim human realities still stands for me as one of the astonishing triumphs of the twentieth century: to hope, still and again, that someday we will break the back of hatred, enclose it, unman it."

I’m feeling a bit gloomy about the world today.  This morning’s newspaper reminded me of the one-year anniversary of the massacre in Beslan.  And then comes September 11, and its memories.  I suppose there’s not a date on the calendar where there hasn’t been pain and bloodshed, somewhere, somewhen.

PS points out that Lemkin was rescued from obscurity by Samantha Power and her Pulitzer-winning book A Problem from Hell.  I once read an interview with Power where she was asked how she can avoid despair, given the world’s consistent history of inaction in the face of genocide.  She responded that she was a Red Sox fan, and so she always had faith that maybe this would be the year when the pattern was broken, or if not this year, maybe next.

(I can’t find the quote online — if anyone has it, I’d love to put the exact quote up.)

Tonight I’m thinking a lot about the Israeli soldiers who have been carrying out the evictions in Gaza.  I’m sure they’re as divided as the rest of Israeli society, some thinking that the withdrawal is a positive step toward peace, some thinking that it’s rewarding terrorism.  But I’m sure none of them ever thought that they’d be compared to Nazi soldiers as they dragged Jews from their homes and synagogues.  This photo essay gives a good sense of the type of rhetoric and emotional scenes they’re facing.

Back in the US, tonight was also the candlelight vigils in solidarity with Cindy Sheehan. 

I’m constantly amazed at how young soldiers are.

May the One who makes peace in the heavens, send peace to us, to all the children of Abraham, and to all the world.

This week, Susan Anne Catherine Torres was born.  Her birth has gotten a lot of attention because her mother died several months ago, of bleeding due to a previously undiagnosed brain tumor.  Her body has been kept on life support since, in order to give the fetus a chance to develop.  However, the cancer was spreading, so they were out of time.  The baby was born at a gestational age of 27 weeks, tiny, but with a good chance of survival.

Several feminist bloggers have been highly critical of this choice, while others have focused their ire on the tone of the media coverage.  I agree that the press has been a bit overwraught, but it’s probably asking to much to expect them to resist the combination of tear-jerker and science fiction.  And the Torres family sought publicity, in order to raise the funds needed for the medical bills. 

I basically see this choice as comparable to organ donation, or embryionic stem cell research.  Susan Torres was gone in May; I see only an affirmation of hope and life in the family’s choice to use her body in this way.  It’s just that we’re not used to having dead bodies be warm and with beating hearts. 

To the extent that I have any reservations about this story, it’s my usual issue that there’s something strange about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep one baby alive, when thousands of children are dying, in Niger and elsewhere, for lack of food, clean water, basic vitamins, and vaccines that cost pennies.  But that utilitarian framework is unrelenting and impossible to live up to.  Pretty much everything anyone in the US spends money on — from bottled water to luxury SUVs, from this Typepad account to my son’s asthma medication — is immoral if you weigh it in such a calculus. 

For what it’s worth, I basically agree with "Mrs. Coulter" that, under comparable circumstances, I’d probably want the same.  In fact, my living will includes the following statement:

"In spite of the above, I am willing to receive treatment under the following conditions:

• If I am pregnant and life-prolonging procedures will result in a reasonable probability of the child being delivered viably and having an acceptable quality of life.
• If keeping my body functioning is necessary to allow my organs to be transplanted. I do not wish to receive treatment for more than one week on this basis."

That’s not to say that I think this is the only reasonable choice.  Especially given how early in Torres’ pregnancy she collapsed, I could well imagine her husband making the decision that, under the circumstances, his living child (they have a 2-year-old as well) needed his full attention and emotional energy.

My thoughts and prayers are with the Torres family tonight.

I only needed to listen to the radio for a minute this morning to figure out what had happened, then turned it off again, not wanting to field questions from D about what had happened and why.  (I won’t be able to shelter him from the world’s horrors for much longer, but I’m going to do it while I can.)  I listened some more on a portable radio on my way to work, turning it off only when my train descended underground and the dulcet BBC announcers turned into static.  The metro was less full than usual, and I can’t help but thinking that a bunch of people had heard the news and decided not to risk public transit this morning.

I know, I know. More people die every day of routine traffic accidents, of AIDS, of malaria, of hunger and of heart disease.  But those don’t leave millions of people frantically trying to get through to their loved ones by phone, cell phone, email or IM, looking for reassurance that they’re ok.  Those don’t leave millions of people saying "I was just there last Tuesday" or contemplating whether the shoes they wear for commuting are suitable for climbing through darkened tunnels. 

My thoughts and prayers tonight are with everyone affected by the bombings, whether they are keeping vigil in a burn ward, or sitting in their office and crying as they read the headlines, or checking their baby’s breathing one more time, or waking up from a dream of planes crashing on a beautiful September morning. 

***

The Post has an article about camera phone pictures of the attacks, with a few selected images.  I also like the unedited selection offered by the 7/7 Community on Flickr.

Last fall, I received several forwarded emails, warning me that Congress was considering a bill to reinstate the draft.  I responded to these with a link to Snopes, pointing out that the bill was introduced by Charles Rangel to make a statement against the war.  Rock the Vote’s ads were effective political theater, but not highly realistic.

In today’s column in the NYTimes, Bob Herbert does not call for reinstating the draft.  But such a suggestion is implicit in his statement that "there are limited numbers of people who will freely choose to participate in an enterprise in which they may well be shot, blown up, burned to death or suffer some other excruciating fate."  He concludes that "Increasing numbers of Americans are recognizing the inherent unfairness of the all-volunteer force in a time of war."

I don’t think that’s true.  I think increasing numbers of Americans are wondering what the heck we’re doing in Iraq and whether there’s any  way we can get out without making matters much much worse.  I think many people are pointing out that if there were a broad-based draft (e.g. without the academic and other exemptions that made the Vietnam war largely a poor kid’s fight, even though there was a draft), the low-level simmer of dissatisfaction with the war would boil over into active protest.  But if there’s a grassroots movement that’s demanding a draft, I’ve missed it.

I’m really appreciating the conversations that the NYT series on class has helped put into motion.

Dawn wrote at This Woman’s Work:

"It’s a privilege to choose to have less without feeling completely freaked out by it…. neither of us have ever seriously worried about not having enough money to feed our kids (we both know that our parents will help us if things got dire)."

And today’s Times had an article about Della Mae Justice, a woman from East Kentucky, who grew up poor but was taken in as a teenager by middle-class cousins, and is a lawyer today.  One quote from her emphasizes that class is about more than income:

"When you’re poor and from a low socioeconomic group, you don’t have a lot of choices in life. To me, being from an upper class is all about confidence. It’s knowing you have choices, knowing you set the standards, knowing you have connections."

So, I don’t think we act rich.  We buy clothes for the boys off of ebay, and have small, at-home birthday parties.  We have a 12-year-old television and a 9-year-old car. (Last month we were quite amused that someone stuck a flyer under its windshield reassuring us that "bad credit is no obstacle!" to getting a new used car). We take books out of the library rather than buying them.

But we don’t have to.  We do it because we’d rather spend the money on other things (travel is my one big expensive taste).  And we value the freedom to earn less than our maximum potential, whether in order to spend more time with the kids, or to work at underpaid do-good jobs.  We have the privilege of choice.