1 American = 100 other people

[Gary_Yngve]

Anyone else annoyed by the comparison of the recent hurricane to the tsunami last year or Hiroshima?

[JAFO]

Hell yeah! This shit is nothing compared to that other stuff.

Let's see Hiroshima, What like 50,000 dead instantly.

Tsunami, I mean damn like anything even needs to be said about that. But I will, Those people had everything washed away with no way to recover, at least we have our money in electronic banks, have helicopters and first aid close by. Does it suck? Yes, it's horrible and unfortunate but only Americans would shoot each other over ice. (just on the news- someone shot thier sister point blank in the head over ice )-nice one! go America! discuss....

[cj001f]

1 American = 1 European = 100 brown people

[TrogdortheBurninator]

I had the same exact thought hearing some poltician on the news saying "This is our tsunami." This hurricane is very sad. The advanced warning all of the decesed had only makes the situation worse. Nonetheless the Tsunami killed entire villages in a single sweep. THis really doesnt even compare.

[Dechristo]

Your comparisons deduce no comparison.

 

I doubt the incongruity is salient to the hundreds dead, the thousands who've lost family members & homes, and the millions affected.

 

It's alright, the child now orphanned and homeless will understand the difference in magnitude when she gets older.

[ChrisT]

Yet another similarity: ex-presidents Clinton and Bush the first are headed to the scene of the disaster today.

[TrogdortheBurninator]

I think the commment is on the tendency of american politicians and media to liken "lesser" domestic tragedies to "greater" international tragedies, particularly those in non-western nations.

 

I honestly beleive Katrina deserves every minute of airtime it receives; however, I do not beleive it is necessary to liken this tragedy to the recent Tsunami. I had the same sentiment hearing 9-11 likened to Hiroshima. The magnitudes simply do not compare and it cheapens the lives of others to pretend they do.

[JayB]

My hunch is that people in the midst of it were groping for a convenient, readily understandable way to communicate what they were seeing to the rest of the world, rather than suggesting that there was actually a literal equivalence between the two disasters.

 

Also - I am operating on the assumption that (hoping, that is) the ire on display here is directed at the commentators viewing the destruction from a remote locale, rather than the people who live there and are coping with the destruction themselves.

 

Otherwise, heaven forbid that they should offend us with their ill-considered analogies in their hour of need.

[Stefan]

Does anybody know about the 2 million estimated starving in Niger?

[ChrisT]

Not to mention the refugees from Dafur. Africa always gets short shrift (sp?). But many are comparing New Orleans to the "third world".

[lummox]

i get most of my news headline information ight herre on cc.com. that way all the extraneous real valuable shit gets filtered out. cept there aint ever enuff paris hilton stuff here. really. someone needs to put in some more effort.

[lummox]

many are comparing New Orleans to the "third world".

same color crayons.

[Jim]

Does anybody know about the 2 million estimated starving in Niger?

 

Non- issue

- dark-skinned people

- it's Africa

- harder to get the traffic copter cam over there

[TREETOAD]

New Orleans was kind of third world before this happened

[ashw_justin]

As I don't watch TV, ever, I've missed all of the sensationalism. But I have not forgotten that the media will say anything, anything to make you pay more attention.

[ChrisT]

yep and we're a nation of rubberneckers - myself included.

[JayB]

Wow - what an amazing panoply of misinformed* moral narcissism masquerading as compassion we have on display here.

 

Given the response on this thread, I expect that all of you will be consistent in the application of always putting losses and tragedies sustained by those close to you in the appropriate global context before indulging anything as petty as grief or sympathy. One can also hope that on those occaisions this tendency to use a tragedy to grind one's geopolitical axes will also be indulged in as readily as it has here, as I am sure that will go over quite well with all in attendance. "Yes it's terrible about Ron's death in that wreck and all, but it only serves to illustrate the real tragedy of fossil fuel consumption that fostered by our predilection for SUV's, which is symptomatic of the larger ills that consumerism has inflicted on our culture, which in turn has its genesis in the ruthless capitalism foisted on the planet by a coterie of multinational businessmen...."

 

*Total cumulative AID to Africa now stands at over 500 billion dollars, but it's not the myriad of difficulties that come along with insuring that aid intended for the most desperate actually arrives in their hands actually does so, rather than into the coiffers or armories of those responsible for their condition, its....racism.

 

Carry on.

[ChrisT]

whatever

[skykilo]

Forget this POS thread, DAMN IT Jay, myriad is a FUCKING ADJECTIVE.

 

I expect better from you.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Wow - what an amazing panoply of misinformed* moral narcissism masquerading as compassion we have on display here.

 

moral narcissm masquerading as compassion = liberalism in a nutshell.

[Dru]

Africa has a net capital OUTFLOW of 90 billion a year even after all that aid. Mostly the well-educated and raw resources leaving. But also money headed for Swiss banks.

[cj001f]

Wow - what an amazing panoply of misinformed* moral narcissism masquerading as compassion we have on display here.

 

Given the response on this thread, I expect that all of you will be consistent in the application of always putting losses and tragedies sustained by those close to you in the appropriate global context before indulging anything as petty as grief or sympathy. One can also hope that on those occaisions this tendency to use a tragedy to grind one's geopolitical axes will also be indulged in as readily as it has here, as I am sure that will go over quite well with all in attendance. "Yes it's terrible about Ron's death in that wreck and all, but it only serves to illustrate the real tragedy of fossil fuel consumption that fostered by our predilection for SUV's, which is symptomatic of the larger ills that consumerism has inflicted on our culture, which in turn has its genesis in the ruthless capitalism foisted on the planet by a coterie of multinational businessmen...."

 

*Total cumulative AID to Africa now stands at over 500 billion dollars, but it's not the myriad of difficulties that come along with insuring that aid intended for the most desperate actually arrives in their hands actually does so, rather than into the coiffers or armories of those responsible for their condition, its....racism.

 

Carry on.

 

Step away from the Bombast

[JayB]

Forget this POS thread, DAMN IT Jay, myriad is a FUCKING ADJECTIVE.

 

I expect better from you.

 

"myr·i·ad ( P ) Pronunciation Key (mr-d)

adj.

Constituting a very large, indefinite number; innumerable: the myriad fish in the ocean.

Composed of numerous diverse elements or facets: the myriad life of the metropolis.

 

n.

A vast number: the myriads of bees in the hive.

Archaic. Ten thousand.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Greek mrias, mriad-, ten thousand, from mrios, countless.]

Usage Note: Throughout most of its history in English myriad was used as a noun, as in a myriad of men. In the 19th century it began to be used in poetry as an adjective, as in myriad men. Both usages in English are acceptable, as in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's “Myriad myriads of lives.” This poetic, adjectival use became so well entrenched generally that many people came to consider it as the only correct use. In fact, both uses in English are parallel with those of the original ancient Greek. The Greek word mrias, from which myriad derives, could be used as either a noun or an adjective, but the noun mrias was used in general prose and in mathematics while the adjective mrias was used only in poetry.

 

 

 

myriad

 

adj : too numerous to be counted; "incalculable riches"; "countless hours"; "an infinite number of reasons"; "innumerable difficulties"; "the multitudinous seas"; "myriad stars"; "untold thousands" [syn: countless, infinite, innumerable, innumerous, myriad(a), multitudinous, numberless, uncounted, unnumberable, unnumbered, unnumerable]

 

n 1: a large indefinite number; "he faced a myriad of details" 2: the cardinal number that is the product of ten and one thousand [syn: ten thousand, 10000]"

[JayB]

Wow - what an amazing panoply of misinformed* moral narcissism masquerading as compassion we have on display here.

 

Given the response on this thread, I expect that all of you will be consistent in the application of always putting losses and tragedies sustained by those close to you in the appropriate global context before indulging anything as petty as grief or sympathy. One can also hope that on those occaisions this tendency to use a tragedy to grind one's geopolitical axes will also be indulged in as readily as it has here, as I am sure that will go over quite well with all in attendance. "Yes it's terrible about Ron's death in that wreck and all, but it only serves to illustrate the real tragedy of fossil fuel consumption that fostered by our predilection for SUV's, which is symptomatic of the larger ills that consumerism has inflicted on our culture, which in turn has its genesis in the ruthless capitalism foisted on the planet by a coterie of multinational businessmen...."

 

*Total cumulative AID to Africa now stands at over 500 billion dollars, but it's not the myriad of difficulties that come along with insuring that aid intended for the most desperate actually arrives in their hands actually does so, rather than into the coiffers or armories of those responsible for their condition, its....racism.

 

Carry on.

 

Step away from the Bombast

 

No can do. I am the Ballanchine of Bombast....

[Dechristo]

Balanchine