Sorry about all the dead people

This is not a forum for discussing Jim's deep thoughts on tsunamis. I won't be blogging on early warning systems and seismic technology, nor will I be debating the quizzical stinginess or profound generosity of the American consumer, whom some of my students have referred to not as customers, but in a creatively apt mispelling, as "costumers". No, I won't be comparing shallow, unfeeling costumers to the disemboweling sorrows of penniless parents on far away Asian shores. Their suffering is real enough, as is my empathy. One small observation: the farther away the tragedy, the less tragic it appears, and the easier to dismiss for people dead to themselves. This is wrong and symptomatic of larger troubles with the human soul, yet it is typical, consistent behavior, even in America, land of the free and home of the brave. When people die, part of you dies with them. I didn't learn that one from television.

Today, I scanned some morning TV, and picked up some scenes as they washed over me. Crawling headlines report 40, then 50 thousand dead. Looping images recoil as I hop from channel to channel: surging saltwater; cauldrons of briny death somehow minimized on the 35 inch screen; buses upturned become toy buses tossed against ramshackle tin houses; TV shrinks the disaster to its own proportions, wraps the bodies, shrouded or exposed in clammy rigor mortis poses, laid out by dozens, hundreds; bulldozers clearing mass graves. Here are the pockmarked faces of survivors. The face of a blonde haired two year old motherless Finlander, spoken of by plastic newsmouths as the veritable signature image of the tragedy: an odd representative, this boy's face who must convey the death of so many Asians to the unfeeling white Christian multitudes, as that unwitting, grimy faced GI was made to bear the weight of Mission Impossible in Falluja; a UN rep in soundbite space, pointing a finger at the West; a broad faced Colin Powell, whose face fills the screen with defensive, posturing fatness, as if his face is pressing against the camera lens, squashing it with volume, his mouth pulling open at the corners to let out dissumlating blather, his eyes spinning like swirling marbles; callers on CSPAN; a FOX morning news lad slamming the UN for its stupidity; Matt Lauer striking sympathetic faces going into the news; coming out, Matt Lauer smiling and interviewing a male fashion designer; a supermodel with a broken pelvis who clung to a palm tree for her life; more pancake announcer-beauties grimacing, then within seconds brightening like their shiny perfect hair. Diane Sawyer with a green tophat upon her head. Commercial spots entering on cue. Tony Danza crooning beside a grand piano in a parking lot, surrounded by middle class women in department store sportswear. Anchors from CNN who have jumped to MSNBC and look different in the MSNBC light, in the MSNBC set, from the MSNBC angles. Everywhere on every channel are people with forced smiles. The day wears on and the tally moves to 60,000. Wall Street resumed its rally, and consumer confidence jumped sharply.

At the north pole, God and Jesus and Santa Claus were kicking back tallying Christmas returns, logging lives saved and heathens lost, occassionally glancing up at the TV to catch an update, debating the finer points of laissez faire economics and hands-off ominipotence. When Rudolph came in, he blew his red nose, cursing the wicked weather and what it was doing to his sinuses. He wondered aloud how soon it'd be before some moron in the lower 48 would appeal to divine providence in all this, the hidden hand of the market and the hidden hand of God, hand in hand with the devastating hand of Mother Nature, who was also present, warming her icy hands by the fire. "Yes, they'll say, it's all part of God's plan for mankind!" quipped Rudolph. Uproars of laughter resounded across the room.