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Sep. 2nd, 2005 05:11 pmAgain, the random bullet points format.
* Gasoline, ouch. I don't drive, because I suck at it and I am scared to death when I try. Even my mom thinks I shouldn't drive, and she's not generally big on me not doing things because I don't like them. But I did drive, I wouldn't be driving now, because I wouldn't be able to afford it.
The gasoline at the store I work at went from $2.68 to $3.17 yesterday, and then up again to $3.67 today. To clarify, this is hardly a decision the store makes. We get a call from the company, they tell us the prices, and we set them. (Some people don't understand this; while I was outside having a cigarette, some guy started bitching right in front of me that my manager is gouging the prices and needs to be reported. Yeah, luck with that, asshole.) I've taken price change calls plenty of times, and the guy who calls is always no-nonsense and not interested in small talk - I've tried joking with him to no avail. Today, though, he started dragging his feet: "Okay, are you ready? I don't even wanna say it. This is bad." "That's okay," I said, expecting a number somewhere near four bucks from the way he was going on, "I don't drive, so I don't care, now hit me." (That may sound a bit abrupt, but I was just trying and probably failing to let him know that I wasn't gonna yell at him or anything.) Then after he told me: "That just hurts to write down." All this from a guy I count myself lucky to get twenty words out of. I wonder what things are like on his end.
* Today's New York Times has a picture from New Orleans on the front page, of a body floating in the water. It's not a graphic picture; the body is the focal point only because you know what it is right away. From a composition standpoint, the picture is more focused on a woman standing at the side of the water.
Well, from the way people reacted, you'd think it was a close-up of a bloated rotting corpse. I know mine is probably a minority opinion, but: Guess what? That's what's happening there. That is a tiny, tiny fraction of what those people are living with. That is something that we need to see. All the columns in the world, all the stories of rioting and subhuman living conditions and starvation and buildings submerged, that doesn't tell us what that one picture of that one body tells us.
"But what if my kids saw that?" What if they do? I think of my four year old brother and eight year old stepsister, and I have no problems with the idea of them seeing that picture. Colby is still too young to really understand about death, and Nicole would probably be troubled, but she'll have heard scary things anyway, and that is what grownups are for. Grownups are there to say, "Bad things are happening down there, but we are safe up here. Would you like to see if we can find a way to help those people?" It's not the Times's job to babysit your kids. It's your job to help them if they are old enough to understand a little of what's going on.
* On a rather more random and superficial note: I realized today that my beloved chicory coffee is made in New Orleans. Better stock up while I can.
* Today's Soxaholix is a good one. Feeling a little hope about New Orleans through your love of baseball. Who'd've thought?
* The Boston Herald (I think; I flipped through so many papers today that they're sort of blurred together in my head) would like to cheerfully remind us that hurricane season ain't over yet, and it's been expected all along to be worse than usual. It would also like to imply that Katrina might not be the only cataclysmically disastrous storm to wander our way this year. Yay! Gotta love the American media, man, always ready and waiting to scare the crap out of us.
* Gasoline, ouch. I don't drive, because I suck at it and I am scared to death when I try. Even my mom thinks I shouldn't drive, and she's not generally big on me not doing things because I don't like them. But I did drive, I wouldn't be driving now, because I wouldn't be able to afford it.
The gasoline at the store I work at went from $2.68 to $3.17 yesterday, and then up again to $3.67 today. To clarify, this is hardly a decision the store makes. We get a call from the company, they tell us the prices, and we set them. (Some people don't understand this; while I was outside having a cigarette, some guy started bitching right in front of me that my manager is gouging the prices and needs to be reported. Yeah, luck with that, asshole.) I've taken price change calls plenty of times, and the guy who calls is always no-nonsense and not interested in small talk - I've tried joking with him to no avail. Today, though, he started dragging his feet: "Okay, are you ready? I don't even wanna say it. This is bad." "That's okay," I said, expecting a number somewhere near four bucks from the way he was going on, "I don't drive, so I don't care, now hit me." (That may sound a bit abrupt, but I was just trying and probably failing to let him know that I wasn't gonna yell at him or anything.) Then after he told me: "That just hurts to write down." All this from a guy I count myself lucky to get twenty words out of. I wonder what things are like on his end.
* Today's New York Times has a picture from New Orleans on the front page, of a body floating in the water. It's not a graphic picture; the body is the focal point only because you know what it is right away. From a composition standpoint, the picture is more focused on a woman standing at the side of the water.
Well, from the way people reacted, you'd think it was a close-up of a bloated rotting corpse. I know mine is probably a minority opinion, but: Guess what? That's what's happening there. That is a tiny, tiny fraction of what those people are living with. That is something that we need to see. All the columns in the world, all the stories of rioting and subhuman living conditions and starvation and buildings submerged, that doesn't tell us what that one picture of that one body tells us.
"But what if my kids saw that?" What if they do? I think of my four year old brother and eight year old stepsister, and I have no problems with the idea of them seeing that picture. Colby is still too young to really understand about death, and Nicole would probably be troubled, but she'll have heard scary things anyway, and that is what grownups are for. Grownups are there to say, "Bad things are happening down there, but we are safe up here. Would you like to see if we can find a way to help those people?" It's not the Times's job to babysit your kids. It's your job to help them if they are old enough to understand a little of what's going on.
* On a rather more random and superficial note: I realized today that my beloved chicory coffee is made in New Orleans. Better stock up while I can.
* Today's Soxaholix is a good one. Feeling a little hope about New Orleans through your love of baseball. Who'd've thought?
* The Boston Herald (I think; I flipped through so many papers today that they're sort of blurred together in my head) would like to cheerfully remind us that hurricane season ain't over yet, and it's been expected all along to be worse than usual. It would also like to imply that Katrina might not be the only cataclysmically disastrous storm to wander our way this year. Yay! Gotta love the American media, man, always ready and waiting to scare the crap out of us.
