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[Newt]

Peter Waller:

But in truth John, for many thousands this past weekend has been armageddon. Our thoughts must be with them.

Because ?????

[Peter Waller]

I care. Over 20,000 dead, what can any of us really say?

[Newt]

The death toll will most likely top 50K by the time all is said and done.

 

I am perfectly content to have you think about the disaster and sorrow over loss of life and property.

 

If you have friends or interests in that area, I can even understand the concern. Otherwise, I really can't.

 

Since death and destruction is a daily happening somewhere in the world and to some places/people, I would effectively paralyze myself if I spent time worrying about them all so it becomes a matter of where to draw the line. I have chosen to confine my efforts to places/people I know or those that will have a direct and substantial impact on that same group.

 

The death toll from this event would have been greatly lessened and the property damage somewhat lessened if the governments of the impacted areas had taken advantage of the early warning system in place. Most did not. They will now seek international aid and will probably not take part in the early warning system in the future. They simply want your government, my government, and others to take care of problems that they made worse than they needed to be.

 

Rant over.

[Peter Waller]

But it was not the fault of the people Newt. Other than that I do accept your rant!

[The Flying Tench]

Peter Waller:

But in truth John, for many thousands this past weekend has been armageddon. Our thoughts must be with them.

I agree with you Peter, though I hear Newt's point, too. If we opened ourselves emotionally to every disaster in the world, and to every personal tragedy reported in the media we'd crack up. But for me there's something about human solidarity which means we have to allow ourselves to feel at least something when there are major disasters. What good does it do? For those who believe, we can pray, and that includes a much bigger group than those who are strongly committed to a particular religion. Also, I guess when we kill off the natural tendency to feel for others something inside us can die. We were talking about the metaphysical poets earlier. Here's one by John Donne, who was a good friend of isaak Walton:

www.love-poems.me.uk/donne_for_whom_the_bell_tolls_s.htm

 

The reason some deeply-feeling people who try to make rational thought the dominant factor in running their lives shut off yuk feelings is that they don't see how it helps anyone. An example is when someone is bereaved. They feel helpless sitting with a person and feeling their pain, and think they ought to be doing something to help. But, strangely, the most helpful thing they can do is to hang in there feeling yuk and useless. Something about how we're made - though I accept that this is a different case from feeling for people miles away.

 

Forgive me for rabbitting on a bout a non-angling topic!

[jeepster]

see, he's trying to convert us now

[The Flying Tench]

Not really, Jeeps - not at this particular point in time! What do you feel when there's a major world tragedy?

[Peter Waller]

I don't see it as an attempt at conversion Jeeps, just a sound and rational assessment of human feelings at a tragic time. As Newt has pointed out some lives could have been saved had the structure been put in place. But it wasn't, and that was not the fault of those who died.

[fenboy]

Newt, I appreciate where you're coming from, but I do hope you remember how nearly every decent person in the world was shocked, horrified and sickened when 9/11 pitched up on your doorstep?

What happened a couple of days ago was a catastrophe which could have been avoided - or, rather, all those tens of thousands of people needn't have died.

Let's look at the facts. The scientists - the seismologists - knew of the huge underwater earthquake when it happened. They knew the effect it would have. But rather than warn the world, they were too busy getting excited by their dramatic graphs. I heard yesterday the rather feeble excuse that they didn't know who to report it to.

We have been told that the tidal wave was travelling at 300mph. Now, I'd hazard a guess that Sri Lanka and southern India is probably 200 miles away. That means there were probably six hours in which they could have made the effort to figure out who to report it to. I expect they were more interested in celebrating the fact that they'd recorded the biggest earthquake for 40 years.

Yes, I realise that most of the victims were poor foreigners. But dare I suggest that coloured people, peasants and Muslims die just as painfully and terribly as Brits and Christians?

[fenboy]

Mr Matthew...

 

It's late, I've had a few drinks (getting some in before Mr Blair bans it). Am I misunderstanding you or are you saying that the Americans sort of "deserved" 9/11. I do hope you're not.

 

I do, however, agree with your opinion on the distastefully biased slant on UK news coverage of the Indian Ocean Disaster - ie a handful of Brits dead dominates even though 25,000 (min) people have lost their lives.

 

Which brings me round neatly to saying: whether you're a Brit, a Yank, a Malay, an Indian, a Sri Lankan, an Indonesian... dying is every bit as unwelcome.

 

So let's not make nasty comments about 9/11, eh?