[General] Katrina

I have been shocked like everyone else not only by the extent of the devastation but also by the total ineptitude of the authorities in responding to this crisis. However some of the comments made by the foreign media, especially quotes from people of developing countries make me cringe. I sense a gloating which is totally and unconditionally unjustified. Yes, we (people of developing countries) have been at the receiving end of western condescension and moralizing for way too long. But that in itself should have made us wiser about not reacting to this tragedy this way. One should never kick someone when they are down. There will be a time for fault finding - and there is a lot of it to find really - but this is not it. Let the basic necessities of the affected people be taken care of. And then we can revisit this.

There was an article in Slate which mentions how media anchors are losing patience with prevaricating politicians and taking them to task on air. I was witness to one such confrontation on NPR between Robert Siegel and DHS secretary Michael Critchoff. Needless to say I am happy to see the media recovering from its 9/11 induced self-castration. This might look like a contradiction of the time-out policy I proposed above. But this media attitude has actually helped rather than hinder the rescue and rehabilitation efforts. So full credits to them.