Sunday, September 11, 2005
Spin, spin, sugar
...and of course, we would have to watch the way things are represented. I assume, at this point in my lifetime, that things were never quite as they appeared, and that I can pretty much rest assured that whatever the history books say, it falls a fair distance from the truth of the matter. (I'm sure some of you would be taken aback at my naivete, but I keep trying to find a way to avoid excessive cynicism in an age that seems to call for it.)
We are watching something of great beauty and potential crumble, I think. I'd probably get slammed by both sides for even saying such a thing, if anyone felt too much like slamming me...because one side wants to say it wasn't beautiful to begin with, and the other wants to deny that it is crumbling. It was beautiful, and it is crumbling.
This is all terribly abstract.
Here's how it is: politicization of NOLA has taken place on both sides, and the call not to talk about politics is, in fact, a politicization of the event. If we're at all honest, we know this. In any case, some folks are out there doing something, while others are finding any spin whatsoever to put on matters. I recently viewed an interview with Pelosi, on CNN, and while my natural political sympathies do lie with Pelosi, I picked it up at a left-wing blog/cum information clearinghouse, and they represented the interview as being a smackdown between Pelosi and a CNN reporter who was defending Bush. I watched the clip, and saw nothing of the sort. What I saw was a reporter who was asking what in the bloody hell a commission to investigate could possibly do to actually change the way we deal with the issues that came terribly to the fore as a result of Katrina's hitting NOLA. Personally, I couldn't agree with the reporter more. The last thing we really need to do is to give the bureaucrats a reason to stay on the payroll for yet another year. We need to chuck all of 'em out, and get people who know what they're doing into office. People who have expertise. People who are smart in ways other than manipulating people's perception of events.
It's all enough to make me go apolitical, because I really can't stand either side--and 'either side' is said only by agreeing with the rather thick assumption, as most voting Americans seem to have done, that there are only two sides to any body politic...especially one as huge as the United States of America. Only guess what? Going apolitical isn't even a possibility, really, even ignoring ethical considerations.
And for anyone who wants to smirk at the spin offered by the left, I picked up an excellent gallery of pics from my go-to right wing source, the one I check in times like these to see what sort of asinine arguments I'm likely to counter (my most recent flyby netted me one poster who sees NOLA as being a 'left-wing utopia'...Huh?). This gallery was described as telling a story a bit different from what the media has. Funny, it doesn't seem to diverge from that story much at all...unless, of course, you accept the experience one might have had living in the French Quarter--the highest land in the area, and the most protected, and not exactly a 'poor' section by NOLA standards--as being in any real way indicative of how most people in New Orleans lives. Still, some good pics.
BTW, while on the subject of New Orleans resources, if you haven't happened upon it already, The Interdictor comes highly recommended. It's the livejournal of a crisis manager working for a data center in downtown New Orleans throughout the hurricane and the aftermath that got slammed by the virtual Katrina...and survived. An interesting read, especially if you follow along chronologically, using the calendar view.
But you know what? I think these guys might be my faves. Coolest neighborhood in New Orleans, and think what you want to of 'em for not evacuating, that's real N'awlins. Stubborn 'cajun fuckers.
But ya gotta love 'em if you love New Orleans, because if it's gonna survive this, it'll be because of people just like this.
We are watching something of great beauty and potential crumble, I think. I'd probably get slammed by both sides for even saying such a thing, if anyone felt too much like slamming me...because one side wants to say it wasn't beautiful to begin with, and the other wants to deny that it is crumbling. It was beautiful, and it is crumbling.
This is all terribly abstract.
Here's how it is: politicization of NOLA has taken place on both sides, and the call not to talk about politics is, in fact, a politicization of the event. If we're at all honest, we know this. In any case, some folks are out there doing something, while others are finding any spin whatsoever to put on matters. I recently viewed an interview with Pelosi, on CNN, and while my natural political sympathies do lie with Pelosi, I picked it up at a left-wing blog/cum information clearinghouse, and they represented the interview as being a smackdown between Pelosi and a CNN reporter who was defending Bush. I watched the clip, and saw nothing of the sort. What I saw was a reporter who was asking what in the bloody hell a commission to investigate could possibly do to actually change the way we deal with the issues that came terribly to the fore as a result of Katrina's hitting NOLA. Personally, I couldn't agree with the reporter more. The last thing we really need to do is to give the bureaucrats a reason to stay on the payroll for yet another year. We need to chuck all of 'em out, and get people who know what they're doing into office. People who have expertise. People who are smart in ways other than manipulating people's perception of events.
It's all enough to make me go apolitical, because I really can't stand either side--and 'either side' is said only by agreeing with the rather thick assumption, as most voting Americans seem to have done, that there are only two sides to any body politic...especially one as huge as the United States of America. Only guess what? Going apolitical isn't even a possibility, really, even ignoring ethical considerations.
And for anyone who wants to smirk at the spin offered by the left, I picked up an excellent gallery of pics from my go-to right wing source, the one I check in times like these to see what sort of asinine arguments I'm likely to counter (my most recent flyby netted me one poster who sees NOLA as being a 'left-wing utopia'...Huh?). This gallery was described as telling a story a bit different from what the media has. Funny, it doesn't seem to diverge from that story much at all...unless, of course, you accept the experience one might have had living in the French Quarter--the highest land in the area, and the most protected, and not exactly a 'poor' section by NOLA standards--as being in any real way indicative of how most people in New Orleans lives. Still, some good pics.
BTW, while on the subject of New Orleans resources, if you haven't happened upon it already, The Interdictor comes highly recommended. It's the livejournal of a crisis manager working for a data center in downtown New Orleans throughout the hurricane and the aftermath that got slammed by the virtual Katrina...and survived. An interesting read, especially if you follow along chronologically, using the calendar view.
But you know what? I think these guys might be my faves. Coolest neighborhood in New Orleans, and think what you want to of 'em for not evacuating, that's real N'awlins. Stubborn 'cajun fuckers.
But ya gotta love 'em if you love New Orleans, because if it's gonna survive this, it'll be because of people just like this.
# posted by Gene Justice @ 8:59 AM 
