Katrina Reflections #4

One public forum contained numerous posts objecting (actually, that's very much a euphemism) to one official who noted that many affected by the catastrophe in New Orleans could share the blame for their difficulties because they had refused to evacuated the city when ordered.

I can fault the guy for discussing this angle so close to the event in question, while there are still people suffering and dying -- while the horror continues.

But I wasn't much for the hate speech (some unrepeatable), which I found to be worse than the man's original comments. The truth is a very complicated thing.

The truth is that the federal government took the threat far too lightly and really wasn't concerned with Louisiana's problems... until now.

The truth is that New Orleans (as a city located 6-20 feet below sea level) was never "safe," despite partial precautions.

The truth is that some people chose to live in New Orleans because they liked it, while others lived there because that's where they were born and raised and (emotional roots) or couldn't afford to relocate (physical roots) -- just as in any other city in the United States.

The truth is that some people evacuated the city when asked, and some left even earlier.

The truth is that some people did not evacuate, some because they didn't accept or understand the degree of danger and others because they did not have the time (traffic congestion) nor the resources (cars, gas) to leave the city.

The truth is that, if more resources were dumped into this by private corporations and citizens (the mayor, for example, suggested commandeering fleets of public buses down there to get people to medical facilities), things could be resolved more quickly and without so much suffering.

The truth is that people are still dying, and right now none of the energy spent by the media and public determining who might or might not be to blame is worth as much as spending it on helping those in need.

Katrina Reflections #3

A friend who I was discussing this with in e-mail said the following:

One of the other things that just bites about this is the inhumanity of the authorities. People at the Superdrome discovered that there was a supply of food and water there, and broke in to prepare it and distribute it. The National Guard showed up and they were ordered out of the kitchens, at gunpoint, with the stated threat that they would be shot if they didn't go.

I heard a guy showed up with 500 hot dogs at the Superdome to give them, and he was turned away, because police said they had no way of knowing whether the hot dogs were safe to consume.

Or there's the kid who was being evacuated, and they made him leave behind his dog because there was a no-animals policy. The kid begged, pleaded and cried so hard he started to throw up, and they wouldn't budge. Gee, do you think the kid might have lost everything else he had and was clinging to the one shred of his own life that was left? Would it have been so unthinkable to have some basic human compassion?

Aside from the fact that no one knows what even "good" hot dogs are made of (all things considered, they probably have shelf lives longer than Twinkies), it's clear that rules that make sense in regards to maintaining a society break down in the face of overwhelming human suffering and immediate need.

People in New Orleans have no access to food or water (essentials without which they will quickly perish), no personal shelter, no possessions, no extra sets of clothes. They have nothing but their own bodies, and even those are at high risk.

But at least they are protected from consuming simulated and heavily-preserved meats of nebulous origin (sans buns?)

I wonder if the boy was alone except for his dog, or if he still had his parents with him. I hope someone was there.

Katrina Reflections #2

A Yahoo news article examining world reactions to the New Orleans devastation quoted an anonymous South Korean woman who said, "Maybe it was punishment for what [the US] did to Iraq, which was a man-made disaster, not a natural disaster... A lot of the people I work with think this way. We spoke about it just the other day."

New Orleans has a black population of 67%, with the poor suffering the most amid the tragedy.

Apparently God has terrible aim, or else poor black people are ultimately responsible for instigating the war in Iraq.

Katrina Reflections #1

Wednesday night, while I was watching coverage of New Orleans, a segment ran showing a black man who was nothing less than broken, lost, dazed. The story fell haltingly, agonizingly, out of his lips – how he and his wife had tried to climb onto the roof of their home when the waters rose, how he had tried to hold onto her but she couldn’t get up to safety, how she had told him that she didn’t want him to die because of her, that she loved him, that he should take care of the kids… and then she had let go.

Now he was wandering the streets, looking for her even while not being able to look because he was far too bewildered and lost amid all the destruction.

The crying reporter kept asking what his wife’s name was, so that word could get out and people could look for her. But the man just kept repeating that he didn’t know what to do, he just didn’t know what to do now…

… after which the anchor cut to a series of on-air interviews with reporters about how they were attempting to cope with the emotional impact of covering the catastrophe.

Debilitating Self-Scrutiny

Inhibition’s devastating.

There’s something to be said about self-control and thoughtfulness, about risk management and sensitivity, about checking and balancing the inner id, but it’s far too easy to drift (or, in my case, plummet) to the other extreme.

I’ve made a habit of “editing” myself with the ardor of the professional TV censor, to the point that I barely live at all.

One thought: “Can’t say that – you might be wrong, you might hurt someone’s feelings inadvertently, you might cause a conflict of some sort.”

Another thought: “Can’t do that – you might fail, it might be the wrong path, you might hurt someone, you might disadvantage yourself somehow.”

A lack of passion, enthusiasm, purpose, accomplishment springs mostly from the fact that I do not actually permit myself to live.

It’s funny how introspective you could be and still never see the nose plainly jutting from your own face. Staring inward is not quite the same as stepping back and soaking in the whole picture, viewing yourself (uncomfortably, I will add) from the outside.

The problem is that life is not meant to be constantly edited. Life is necessarily lived in the moment, not in the past or future (coincidentally, two states of being that do not really exist, at least for us mortal non-omnipotent beings). The only moment we can actually change is the Now, that fleeting fluid split-second of time in which we have volition to act, the ability to affect ourselves and the world. It is only in the Now that we actually live.

It seems like my moments of effectuality have been consistently squandered on scrutinizing myself with the relentless stringency of an obsessive-compulsive who can’t help but drive home three or four times to make sure he locked the door and turned off the burner.

Got a note from another blogger today that pretty much says the same:

I think you hit upon an important theme … of writing in general. It's the ability to write in the moment and live in that moment. It's funny how people will read [my work] as if I was writing a dissertation on a subject. They want to pick this point or that point apart.

I keep saying, "It's descriptive more than prescriptive." It's a snapshot of what I thought and felt…

… amen to a writer's calling to be vulnerable in the moment, even knowing that what you say might "dog you" as you say, forever.

Ironically, my youngest son is probably my salvation in this regard. In some ways, he and I lead almost humorously antithetical lives – I think excessively before doing, he does excessively before thinking. I'll never get anything done, he gets too much accomplished.

This aspect of Brendan can be very frustrating to me, due to the [what I consider unnecessary] chaos he can leave around and behind him. So much mess could be avoided if he would only stop for a second and consider the ramifications of the deed upon which he is about to embark.

But he also is free in a way that I am so NOT.

And you always know where he stands on something, while I hide my thoughts so much that even when I voice them, they remain watered-down and unconvincing.

What am I so afraid of, that I am unwilling to just “leap into the sky” and flap my wings?

Question for later… so I can think about it some more. :)

BTK and the Possibility of Redemption

The BTK story can’t help but explore the (im)possibility of redemption.

I had followed the case for a number of years, since the oddest thing was simply that BTK had stopped communications with the police and seemingly vanished, despite being someone who behaviorally would be extremely unlikely to stop killing on his own.

Then came the resurfacing of BTK, after so many years, and his own audacity and hubris resulting in his capture. (It seems odd that a man so intelligent would be so ignorant of basic computer technology, or at least not be cautious enough to avoid anything that could potentially earmark him for the police. BTK had spent his entire “career,” supposedly, being cautious and meticulous.)

Whatever the case, after his capture, his wife and children are put through the wringer. What does it mean to discover that the man who supposedly cared for you, protected you, the man to whose authority you submitted, blithely murdered not just women but children in order to satisfy his own internal cravings? It’s like stepping into toxic quicksand, all foundation suddenly melting away under your feet. Your past – or at least, a large part of it – was nothing but a fabrication.

That story does not have a happy ending, as his wife quickly moved to divorce him and pick up her life elsewhere. Can she ever “forgive” him, and if so, what exactly does that mean? What would it look like? Trust was not just shattered but trampled, torn, spit on, and crumpled like old newspaper with headlines that no longer apply.

Dennis Rader’s pastor was placed in a consternating situation. A man he trusted and depended on, a man he thought loved God, was instead harboring the antithesis of the faith he supposedly embodied. If the core of Christianity is self-sacrificing love, in Rader he now had someone who sacrificed others to feed his own self-love. It would be as if Jesus came down to consume and sublimate, rather than freely serve and offer himself as a ransom for many.

How does a pastor properly react to this wolf in the fold? How do you love a self-confessed murderer who, at core, does not seem repentant? The pastor continued his visits and refused to abandon Rader, but I do not know what they discussed while they were alone, or the tension that crackled between them during each meeting.

There was some speculation that Rader wanted to get caught. That he should not have been caught because he was smarter than that. That he could have laid low and died in anonymity, no one (except God of course) the wiser. That his resumed games with the police showed that something in him wanted to expose his duplicity and somehow find healing. That perhaps he was in the process of being redeemed and was moved by God to give himself up.

It’s a nice dream, but after watching some of the psychologist’s interview with Rader, I’m not so sure. Rader apologized for his crimes in open court, he expressed remorse verbally for what he had done, but the coldly clinical demeanor that unsettled many in the courtroom was only more obvious in the privacy of his cell.

Perhaps we cannot assume how someone should behave or speak in a stressful situation, and certainly people have been unfairly judged by an unrealistic standard, but I think that it’s fair to say that a repentant man is a broken man – one consumed by sorrow and grief for what he has done. He does not beg for mercy because he knows he deserves none, and in fact offers to pay to the fullest extent of the law.

Those interviews did not show a broken man, nor even a shaken man. His demeanor was as one sitting with a friend in a bar, chatting about life over his beer stein, his descriptions and observations of his own crimes as impersonal and detailed as a geek bragging about his home computer system. It wasn’t a show or a mask, he was as cool as the proverbial cucumber, and he seemed to revel in providing countless details about his personal experience as the BTK killed -- his thoughts, his feelings, his careful plans, his intelligent execution of them. He was a man who could not stop talking about himself, a man who might as well been showcased on Jerry Springer if he would not have been incarcerated.

And we know Rader still has the capacity for tears, because he did break down once or twice – when discussing how his terrible mistakes would now result in him spending the rest of his life behind bars. How he had now lost everything (family, freedom, respect, authority) he once had.

He wept solely about his own loss.

There is redemption available to every man – I believe that, I have to believe that – but in Dennis Rader I see nothing but an empty shell of a human being. A self-absorbed vacuum that consumes others in order to fill itself, yet never succeeds in banishing its own emptiness. If the Spirit was ever at work there, it currently is speechless.

Time Keeps On Slipping...

The seasonal marker has not yet passed, but for all intents and purposes, summer is over: The kids start school again today.

Two of them seem excited about the prospects. The third, while showing some anticipation, is also in the process of grieving to the point of tears, for what lies ahead still does not quite compare to what must be left behind. The summer is over, and ultimately failed to live up to his expectations.

Reminiscent of the opening to Jackson’s “The Fellowship of the Ring,” nothing is permanent; everything slips away:

…I feel it in the water
I feel it in the earth
I smell it in the air
Much that once was is lost
For none now live who remember it…

I don’t know what that expectation is supposed to be – what remarkable experience supposedly “exists” out there that we would want to be forever immersed within, why everything we experience now in life (no matter how good or fun or momentarily fulfilling) still pales in comparison to it.

All we know is that nothing ever measures up, nothing ever endures. All good things come to an end, and that mortality makes them often feel less good.

I remember lying in bed the eve of my thirteenth birthday, and thinking that part of my life was over – forever after, I would be a teenager and beyond, my childhood left behind. Many children thrill to the idea; I was happy to be growing older and gaining the privileges of my maturation, but I also mourned what I was losing because I knew it was gone forever.

Connor had the same experience when he turned ten. The day before his birthday, Cherie told him that he would never be a kid again, that he would be turning ten and moving on with his life, and he suddenly burst into tears and sobbed for half an hour. He was teary even on his birthday; he wanted to move ahead without losing what he previously had.

I understood that feeling far too well, and it’s hard even for a 36-year-old man to deal with.

Old "Friends"

Today my cousin Rachel got married.

It’s funny how sometimes no matter how hard I try, trying to talk to people is usually like trying to do open-heart surgery blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back (it’s not only a dismal failure but leaves behind an undeniable bloody mess)… but there is that small handful of people who, when we see each other, no matter how much or little time has passed in-between, conversation is as easy as breathing and there’s no fear, only the enjoyment of being in each other’s company once more.

Rachel, out of all my relatives, is one of those people.

Which is odd, since almost all the people I intuitively connect are very much like myself in their personalities, interests, and the like. Rachel and I share love of the intuitive, appreciation for anything creative, but otherwise we are very different.

I’m inhibited; Rachel is anything but.

I’m quiet and reserved; Rachel is outgoing and all out there, no real secrets.

I’m a writer and musical artist who dabbles in visuals; Rachel’s a visual and tactile artist who dabbles in music.

I’ve got asthma and allergies; she smokes.

(As a final case in point, I’m bald; Rachel’s not. But I suppose that’s a good thing, all things considered -- unless you’re that chick from “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”)

The last time I saw Rachel and talked to her was ten years ago. Before then, it had been a few years – it might have been the time I was making up pathetically stupid poetry and making her laugh, bless her heart for indulging me:

You make me cry
I want to die

Oh why, oh why,
Oh why can’t I
Remember why
You ate my tie?

Why not eat rye
With pumpkin pie?
But no, my tie,
You had to try.

You make me cry
I want to die

(Touching, huh? Hmm, maybe there’s a reason I don’t do well in mixed company…)

Of course, with familiarity comes all the terrible stories I had long forgotten.

Like the time I was supposed to get a haircut but really didn’t want to go, so Rachel and I went to a drugstore, bought a 69-cent pair of scissors, she cut my hair in the backseat of the car, and then we spent our ill-gotten gains on pizza and soda. (I didn’t think she did a bad job, but my feeble hopes didn’t thwart my parents from asking me where I had gone for such a rotten haircut. And within the next ten years, most of my hair had fallen out – coincidence or NOT?)

Or the time I stayed over there while I was away at school, and Rachel and Deb and I went roller-skating in their house-length cemented basement… while I supposedly wore a metal army helmet and repeatedly crashed head-first into things. (Needless to say, I don’t have ANY memories of that – coincidence or NOT?)

And back when we were six or so, and we were both planning to elope, and so we packed our toothbrushes for the arduous trip ahead. (I remember mine, it was a little gold brush with the neck and head of a giraffe. And Rachel, I think, was wearing a blue dress with white dots on it.) I’m not quite sure where we were going, but I doubt it would have been dull. And anyway, I’m STILL a lousy packer and like tacky toothbrushes (coincidence or NOT?)

It’s just funny how both of us have this complete acceptance and interest in the other, without having to do anything to keep the connection there. And her husband Kevin seems as easy to talk to as she is.

Thank God for e-mail. Maybe now I won’t have to keep talking about how we still connect despite long years of silence.