Tsunami

I know I haven't said anything about the disaster in Asia. I'm just not sure what there is I could say. It's awful, so go give money and write to the Bush people demanding they send more. Sure, $350 million is a bit more like it than their original feeble pledges, but they could always give more. I mean, if they're not concerned about pouring infinite money into the bottomless hole that is Iraq, you'd think maybe they wouldn't be so squeamish about pouring it elsewhere--somewhere where it can do some actual good.

One thing that bemuses me is various cynical individuals pointing out the news media's tendency to focus on white people effected by the disaster, when the victims were overwhelmingly Asian. Yes, in a perfect world, this would not happen. But...really, now. You'd have to be living in your own little world not to realize how incredibly tribal we are: the damn A-rabs caused 911. The damn Uurpeans won't support our quixotic crusade. The damn homos want to get married. The damn libruls want to take our money. And so on. The extent to which we are able to empathize with people is directly proportional to how much like ourselves we perceive them as. I have difficulty seeing how you could have lived through that last farce of an election cycle and still find yourself capable of outrage over a totally predictable reaction to tragedy.