The Math of the Aftermath

Comedian Chevy Chase, when he anchored the first Saturday Night Live faux-news desk, had a running joke that satirized, post-mortem, the endless medical updates provided by the public relations machine of a dying dictator …”Here’s a bulletin from Spain: Doctors are reporting that Generalissimo Francisco Franco is holding fast in his valiant fight to remain dead!”The point, of course, was that neither the Spanish public nor the global public at the time was ever fooled by the propaganda of Franco’s terminal condition during his last days. The tweak also carried undertones that no government could overcome the forces of nature, no matter what it announced.That brings us to the wake of Hurricane Katrina.Anyone who has been to the Gulf Coast says that the media images of the devastation there — no matter how hard they try — just cannot convey the scope of the disaster. Vast segments of the region have literally been blown back a couple of centuries, to a time when electricity, telephones, running water and the like were either a luxury or a futuristic concept. Usual conveniences such as food shopping are still a major challenge to many. Some jobs may have left with Katrina; like her,… Read full this story

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