The Long Goodnight, Irene
Last evening, I left behind almost three million Americans in the Northeast still cut off from the 21st century by the high winds of Hurricane Irene-—without electrical power, TV or Internet access, many depending on iffy private generators that could conk out at any moment to remain unserviced by overwhelmed repair people and deprive them of fresh water and unspoiled food.
For five days and nights, it was like living in the opening lines of a famous 20th century novel: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
Debates about government and private enterprise seemed moot, as municipalities, power companies, independent contractors and homeowners seemed equally powerless to deal with flooding, fallen trees and wires that thrust tens of millions back into an era they had never experienced.
On Sunday, I had no TV to hear George Will propound a conservative view of the storm on ABC: “Whatever else you want to say about journalism, it shouldn’t subtract from the nation’s understanding and it certainly shouldn’t contribute to the manufacture of synthetic hysteria that is so much a part of modern life. And I think we may have done so with regard to this tropical storm as it now seems to be.”
That would have been a comforting perspective as neighbors dealt with damaged homes and the inability to get food, water or medical help…
9 Responses to “The Long Goodnight, Irene”
Ha hahaha…..
Take THAT George!
I find it so ironic that conservatives decry “synthetic hysteria” about a storm that left millions without power, thousands stranded, hundreds without homes, and dozens dead, so soon after the Great Debt Ceiling Debate, a manufactured, self-serving “crisis” instigated by the Teabaggers to derail a President’s agenda.
George Will is a pompous fool parading as an intellectual. As with so many other conservatives he seems to suffer from an empathy deficit.
In fairness to George Will, he was not on the Debt Ceiling bandwagon. He commented on it, of course, but I could find no evidence he was part of the cabal creating that crisis out of whole cloth.
My comments were targeted at conservatives in general, not Will specifically.
All the “conservatives” I know have been very sympathetic towards this situation.
It’s prejudicial demonization like this that makes having any sort of rational discussion about subjects a miserable disappointment.
Way to go painting an entire cross-section of America based on the reported actions of a few.
@Stray
Of course no conservatives want to tie extra temporary FEMA and NWS funding during this crisis to more budget cuts. I have a W solution, take the crisis funding from the general budget and borrow from the unfunded GlobalWarOnTerror(GWOT.)
This brings back fond(not) memories of the Northeast Blackout of 2003. Now that was a whopper compared to Irene…
Had all those people in the North-East had solar panels on their roofs, they would not be totally out of power…
Stirfried Mongrel-
Give it a break. You cannot hide the fact that everybody here has watched Fox’n Frauds a few times. We know better.