Observing

I was reading the Toronto Star yesterday. The front page photo was gruesome but, in photojournalism terms, it was striking.

It had many layers. At first, I saw the devistation of this unnamed New Orleans street. Then, in the foreground, you see a foot, then a denimed leg, then, slumped in a concrete hole, a bare, bloody and twisted bottom half of a torso. But, still studying it (something I still do ever since university), I looked for more.

I saw two very long rebar poles with concrete at one end (and presumably off-camera). This pointed out to me by my handy brother-in-law (it was my neice's birthday, so we dropped by). They must have weighed 150 pounds or more, cutting across this man's leg. It probably had him pinned and he was crushed. Looking further, you could see that his leg was broken. The pain and the horror this man must have suffered!

But as I read article after article, I came across one written by an entertainment columnist, Antonia Zerbisias, which just shocked me more than the photo. Her point was that had the media done a better job, maybe it wouldn't have been so bad.

For years, reports of hurricanes were just reporters standing by palm trees saying, "There's some strong winds, y'know." Year after year, that was the standard. So perhaps people didn't take the warnings seriously. I know when my brother-in-law told me about the then impending hurricane before we left B.C., I thought it wouldn't be so bad.

But the columnist went further and mentioned that the US federal government had cut the budget of the New Orleans Army Corps of Engineers (the people who maintain the levees and canals) by over $71 million US. Had there been any mention of this in mainstream media? Nope. I wonder if the citizens of New Orleans were aware of this. If they were, perhaps they could have made a stink - you know, the sqeaky wheel theory? Just last year, National Geographic had a lengthy article about how, should the levees break, it would be catastrophic. All "would have, could have, should have" now.

And then I closed the paper and watched Rock Star: INXS.