120,000? That Was LAST Week...
Do you remember in school, when they taught us about Pompeii and Herculaneum, two Roman cities obliterated by an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in August, 79 AD? Perhaps as many as 6,000 people perished in this, the worst natural disaster I had ever heard about at that point in my life.
Six thousand people; I could barely get my head around a number like that. I couldn't imagine it, it was all the people in my school and all the families who lived in my neighborhood, and all the people I went to church with and all of the people in their neighborhoods, too.
I remember passing through a small town in middle Alabama on the way to my grandmother's house, and the sign said "pop. 6000", and I thought, 'hey, they could all have been killed in that disaster'. It was the worst thing I had ever heard about, and the event was burned into my memory, though I didn't know anyone who'd been affected by it. It had been 19 centuries, after all, but still-- six thousand people? That's a lot.
I guess by now we're having so much news that things just have to be bumped when their shelf life draws to a close. A few dozen marines in Beirut, a couple hundred federal employees in Oklahoma, nearly four thousand at the World Trade Centers? Huh, old news.
Now, a new 'worst thing ever' for me, at least. As many as 125,000 deaths in a single catastrophic wave, and just a couple of weeks later it's being bumped by a rain storm in California. My gosh, maybe twelve dead, roads and rails washed away or buried in mud, commerce may be affected for weeks to come.
I know that these twelve dead are dear to someone. Each of them was somebody's little baby, sister, dad, mom, uncle, or whatever. They were Americans, too, and not the rich kind who could afford to jet off to Thailand on a whim, so maybe that will bump them up the ladder of significance a bit.
But, in the end, there were only twelve. That's about one hundred and twenty four thousand, nine hundred and eighty eight shy of the record. Sorry, boys, Asia wins again.
It's like you spent two years making the best movie ever, and it was sensitive and provocative and made people think and had an important message, good direction and cinematography, stunning performances by a strong cast, and it opens in theaters the same weekend as Jaws. At the end of the year, are we going to remember the thunderstorms in California?
Probably not, but for now, commerce may be interrupted for several days, maybe weeks by the mudslides and all, and that's a damn sight more important than fifty thousand foreign orphans.
Six thousand people; I could barely get my head around a number like that. I couldn't imagine it, it was all the people in my school and all the families who lived in my neighborhood, and all the people I went to church with and all of the people in their neighborhoods, too.
I remember passing through a small town in middle Alabama on the way to my grandmother's house, and the sign said "pop. 6000", and I thought, 'hey, they could all have been killed in that disaster'. It was the worst thing I had ever heard about, and the event was burned into my memory, though I didn't know anyone who'd been affected by it. It had been 19 centuries, after all, but still-- six thousand people? That's a lot.
I guess by now we're having so much news that things just have to be bumped when their shelf life draws to a close. A few dozen marines in Beirut, a couple hundred federal employees in Oklahoma, nearly four thousand at the World Trade Centers? Huh, old news.
Now, a new 'worst thing ever' for me, at least. As many as 125,000 deaths in a single catastrophic wave, and just a couple of weeks later it's being bumped by a rain storm in California. My gosh, maybe twelve dead, roads and rails washed away or buried in mud, commerce may be affected for weeks to come.
I know that these twelve dead are dear to someone. Each of them was somebody's little baby, sister, dad, mom, uncle, or whatever. They were Americans, too, and not the rich kind who could afford to jet off to Thailand on a whim, so maybe that will bump them up the ladder of significance a bit.
But, in the end, there were only twelve. That's about one hundred and twenty four thousand, nine hundred and eighty eight shy of the record. Sorry, boys, Asia wins again.
It's like you spent two years making the best movie ever, and it was sensitive and provocative and made people think and had an important message, good direction and cinematography, stunning performances by a strong cast, and it opens in theaters the same weekend as Jaws. At the end of the year, are we going to remember the thunderstorms in California?
Probably not, but for now, commerce may be interrupted for several days, maybe weeks by the mudslides and all, and that's a damn sight more important than fifty thousand foreign orphans.
posted by joe at 9:30 PM
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