Reason number 355 why I'm going to hell

I think there must be something wrong with me. But I am utterly fascinated with all this shit going down in New Orleans.* Maybe it's something about man reverting to his most basic nature, or something about a horribly written post-apocalyptic sci-fi story becoming real life, but the stories and pictures coming from the Gulf coast are habit-forming. This hurricane somehow got to me in a way the recent tsunami didn't. I mean- yeah, it sucked for all those poor Indonesian people who died and whose villages were completely wiped out, but it was half a world away and quite honestly I didn't care beyond thinking "glad that wasn't me!" My mom always tells me she's ashamed of me because I'm not empathetic. I, however, think I can be very empathetic a lot of the time, I'm just rarely sympathetic, but sometimes things are just too huge in scope or too distant from my perception of reality that forming any sort of emotion about it at all requires too much energy on my part just to feel sucky that it's not worth it to me. I hope that sentence made sense, cause I can't figure out how to say it.

So... New Orleans. There's something tragically and classically epic about the situation Katrina has left behind her. But when I think about it, probably my strongest attraction to the scenario really is because it's like a cliche sci-fi book come to life. The utter devastation shows up clearly enough in the photographs and films being recycled on all the news stations and it just amazes me that it can be so complete. The inevitable looting and burning that followed fits perfectly in the formula for the post-apocalyptic tale. Whether it's a nuclear holocaust or an uncontrollable act of nature, the stories are all the same. For some reason, I particularly liked the fact that a lot of the police immediately got in on the looting, using their position as an excuse to take the best stuff. It says something about human nature, non?

I found it poignant and yet still fascinating that people are having to push floating dead bodies out of the way in order to rescue the living. Can you even begin to imagine doing that? I don't think I've ever seen a dead human body. To be shoving numerous ones to the side both in the physical world and in your conscience must mean the situation is indeed desperate. To be living for the past several days in a giant superdome literally stuffed with other smelly bodies, both dead and alive, and every kind of human waste thinkable has got to be nightmarish. Imagine watching someone not 10 feet from you die. And then not really being able to do anything about it.

I'm not some creepy necrophiliac, though. I don't like that people had to die and suffer and have everything they own be destroyed. I wish that didn't have to happen. I just can't stop obsessing with how people reacted to it. And it brings me to the conclusion that journalists are soulless beings. Only one of the reasons is this: almost every news story you read says that the survivors have no way of communicating with the outside. Well... obviously there are reporters on the inside reporting to their stations on the outside. They should stop being so selfish with their lines of communication. And there is all the footage of the people standing on roofs yelling for help, but instead of, oh I don't know... helping these people... the reporters just fly by in their little helicopters. And don't leave me a bunch of excuses for their behavior. I don't care about the reasons why they can't do anything. And it really annoys me how all the damn reporters put on this air of "oh, I'm so sincerely sorry all this happened and my heart is just bursting with pain for each and every individual who had to survive this and it just shows how we can survive and God bless America blah blah blah...." because they're LYING.

Or maybe I'm just a heartless bitch.

*I hate it when people say "new-or-LEENS," it oughta be "new-AHR-lins." Well, technically, it should be "new-ohr-LAY-ahn," but that's just too hard to say.