(no subject)

[technoir]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Kashmir_earthquake

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The 2005 Kashmir earthquake occurred at 8:50:38 a.m. West Asia Standard Time (Pakistan Standard Time) and 9:20:38 a.m. (India Standard Time) (03:50:38 UTC), on October 8, 2005 with the epicenter in the Pakistan-administered region of the disputed territory of Kashmir. It registered 7.6 on the Moment magnitude scale making it a major earthquake similar in intensity to the famous 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Initially, official Pakistani estimates were that the earthquake has killed over 42,000 people and injured over 65,000. [1] However, as most of the affected areas are in mountainous regions and have been rendered inaccessible by landslides that have blocked the roads, the death toll is estimated to be much higher. At least 2.5 million people have been left homeless.


So why is it we do not get the hundreds of posts concerning this? Do we just care less if it is on the other side of the world? Are we simply just numb? Is there a point when the sheer level of disaster after disaster make the names just bleed together? I know I feel the same sence of powerless frustration watching that news as i did watching the news from New Orleans. If your one who believes in prayer say a few for those poor souls.

just my thoughts.

Comments

[phoeclipse.livejournal.com]

wow that is so sad, I hadn't even heard of it. I definately think we are numb. The past several years have been so full of massive death tolls that it simply stops being interesting. What that says about us as a nation I don't know but I think Rome probably felt a lot like this for a while before the fall.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

To steal one of my favorite lines.

For it is the doom of man that they forget.

[hapersmion.livejournal.com]

It has actually been all over NPR. Apparently the US is sending helicopters down from the Afganistan-ish area, but I don't know about other kinds of aid.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

There will probably be a lot of aid coming from us. Despite what the critics say, america at least is pretty big on helping in these sort of things.

[newsedition.livejournal.com]

Um, yes, we care less if it's on the other side of the world. At least I do. I've been housing my cousin, her husband, and their baby boy for the past three weeks because they lost their house and pretty much everything in it due to Katrina. I don't know anybody who was affected by the earthquake personally, which puts it much further down on my priority scale. I have far more of an effect here than I do there, and if I were to broaden my focus to encompass the entire world, I would be totally ineffective. Sheer practicality there.

Yes, I am sorry for the victims in Asia, but honestly, there are plenty of folks in Asia who actually know the people affected and can do a lot more than I can about helping out there. I do think it would be nice if our nation could provide financial and material aid to help in the recovery there, but I also think it would be nice if our president would pull his head out of his ass and help to implement an honest-to-god decent tax structure so that we could afford to do such things without borrowing money from China, which would be kind of silly as China's right there.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

We are, despite policies of the current regime, the most proserous nation around. I think we can afford our generosity.

[jenharts.livejournal.com]

The numbers I'd heard were a lot lower - in the mid-20,000s - as far as casualties. But I did the math the other night. Add up all the people killed in Katrina and Rita. Add all the people killed in 9/11. Add all the US military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan in the current conflict.

Even if you assume the fatality rate in the Kashmir earthquake is 25,000-ish, you'd have to multiply all of the above by more than 3x in order to match the number killed in the earthquake. Assuming technoir's numbers are right, it's even higher.

I agree that many of us know people directly effected by Katrina, so it's close to the forefront of our minds. It is literally close to home, and I don't fault anyone in the slightest for it - and the other tragedies I mentioned above - being a bigger deal to us than something that happens on the other side of the planet. Of course it is, and I do not want to in any way belittle the importance of our losses. However I do think it's important for us to occasionally put things in a broader perspective too.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

I think the numbers thing is part of it at least. So many people have died in natural disatsters in the last 12 months so as to just overwhelm any sense of perspective. 230,000 people died in the tsunami in december alone. It is hard to imagine that many people dying.

[outlawcoon.livejournal.com]

My posts after Katrina had to do with frustration with our government's response (which doesn't apply here) and with a fundraiser (which got very little response from my friends list) for the Red Cross.

Saying that we care less is antagonistic, but I guess you could express it that way if you wanted. I would have said rather than the horror strikes closer to home when it's....well, home.

It's also been just a terrible year for natural disasters. And those people are in my prayers.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

It was not an attempt at being antagonistic. For the most part I guess I was just expressing my internal dialog. If nothing I think I am the one i am wondering about. I like to think most of the people on my friends list are the sort to keep the people suffering in the world in mind. I was just really just expressing my conciderations is all.

[outlawcoon.livejournal.com]

I can see that, now that you've said it. I think I have a reaction to the phrase 'care less' because of the often-flippant or angry 'I couldn't care less.'

(Or the misused 'I could care less,' but that's a whole different post topic.)

[twelveoaks.livejournal.com]

Sorry I didn't respond to your fund raiser post, btw. I had intended to at least comment. By the time I saw it I had already made donations elsewhere, but it was a good thing to remind people, even if they didn't specifically give through your resource.

[outlawcoon.livejournal.com]

The thing that was so puzzling was that the linkers didn't have to give; the post was a commitment for /me/ to give. (Though I did give more for people that continued the meme and therefore donated themselves.)

Ah well. I got to nearly my maximum anyway. It was just a puzzlingly small response. I wrote it off to possible misunderstanding and disaster overload.

[imperatrix.livejournal.com]

(Commentary to no one particular person):

My dad tells me, "You can't save someone from a sinking ship if your own boat is leaking." What this always meant to me is that I need to look to my own needs first, because it's pretty stupid to send money across the globe if I can't even feed and shelter myself locally. Sometimes we're just not in a position to send money or items somewhere, even if it's right next door. There have been plenty of times that people within our own LARP community have had a need, and I despaired over the fact that I wasn't in a position to help at that moment in time. As for the latest disasters across the globe, a dollar here and a dollar there has been the best I can do for the Red Cross, mostly at the grocery store as I run in for whatever thing I used to take for granted in my pantry. I am pleased to know that the American Red Cross isn't just for Americans in the continental USA-- their aid is pretty much global, which says a lot to me for who we are as a nation actually.

If I sit around and despair over every disaster that strikes humanity, I will quickly fall into a deep depression and withdraw from pretty much everything-- the solution is to tackle things a bit at a time, doing as much as I can within reason. Otherwise I'd want to die myself just to get rid of one more person that takes up space and resources that the rest of the world could sorely use. Just because a running commentary of my prayers for people everywhere isn't in every single post in my LJ doesn't mean that I don't care. I think that's true for most people.

The Red Cross does have my blood though, and victims everywhere are in my thoughts, too-- the end of my own nightly prayers is "and to all those who need Your Grace, I pray that it is granted." I think that covers pretty much everyone on the planet (and... elsewhere), whether they're in a disaster zone or not.

Sometimes all we can do is pray.

[technoir.livejournal.com]

I hope no one thought I was making criticism against anyone. I due a lot of posts or conversations for just the point of exploring what the hell is going on in my own head. I dont let myself loose sleep on stuff like this. I do what I can(yes I make annual modest payments to several groups not the least of which is the red cross). I think the people I choose to associate with are some of the most generous people I have ever known. My point was that this one did not seem to have the same emotional impact as some of the previous disasters. I was mearly expressing my thoughts of my own.