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« Doris Lessing on Bush, Blair and 9/11 | Main | Cough, cough...(Sujatha) »

October 25, 2007

Comments

It's interesting that Fox substitutes "Act of Terrorists" within an essentially "Act of God" framework for explaining a natural phenomenon (although arsonists appear to have been involved in some of the blazes, you'd have to be wholly ignorant of California ecology not to see wildfires as a natural phenomenon). It's unfortunate that humans seem more comfortable judging-- that is, probing agency and wrongdoing-- than planning-- investigating mundane, controllable factors and exerting agency and responsibility to do something about them.

"As more than a million people escaped the flames"

The LA Times has an article suggesting why the number is probably much much lower than that.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-evacuation25oct25,0,6746893.story?coll=la-home-center

I understand from the article how those who reported the number as 800,000 arrived at that inflated figure, but not how one might arrive at one million, except through the inumerate logic that both numbers are "a lot." The reality check is not in any way intended to minimize the suffering of people who have been displaced, or lost their homes and possessions, which is something no one should have to face. I am very sympathetic and feel very concerned about those people, particularly the ones who don't have other resources to draw on, don't have adequate insurance, and/or are otherwise vulnerable to the dislocation and loss (a wildfire threatened our home when I was ten, off at summercamp, and my mother at home behind fire lines recovering from a major surgery; the experience populated my childhood nightmares with fire dreams for years). But numbers should mean something more than their ability to move people emotionally, like what kind of resources will be necessary to address the needs of the people those numbers reflect.

As a side note, the air quality here in LA is still really wretched (yes, it's always bad, and on the other hand we don't have the noon darkness we had in 2003, but still). Although government maps show my neighborhood at "moderate" not full-blown "unhealthy" levels of air-particles, I woke up planning on a jog but wheezing and head-achey, and looking out my window, confronted blurry air and a thin, rust-colored haze on the horizon. I hope it blows out to sea before your trip, Ruchira.

With regards to Fox News, they've taken up the niche occupied by the Pravda in the ex-Soviet Union. They are following the meme that if an untruth is repeated loudly and often, it sticks in the minds of the mass of listeners. So they push their crackpot theories as 'news' with a series of paid (and/or) brainwashed actors to present it on air.

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