Meghan Kraynak “Blog Triumphalism and the Audience” Blog triumphalism is a new term coined in today’s media, a reference to the obsession and attention given to personal websites maintained by one person as a journaling of their own lives, posted up for virtually the entire world to witness. The triumph that blogs have managed in [...]
William Chuang Preserving Sweet Humanity A tsunami travels on average at about 750km per hour; a sneeze can go as fast as 80% the speed of sound or around 1000 km per hour; sympathy travels at an incalculable speed, at times faster than light, at times lingering slowly like a bad smell. Unlike a tsunami [...]
Kandace Bowens The Hardest Hit A natural disaster is defined as any event or force of nature that has catastrophic consequences, such as avalanche, earthquake, flood, forest fire, hurricane, lightning, tornado, tsunami, and volcanic eruption according to Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary. But who told Webster that those were the only instances that under any circumstance [...]
Wes Cronkite As I navigated the array of 24/7 cable news networks in the days immediately following the tsunami, I expected to find some way to enable myself to see the disaster in its full spectrum. Some insight into the vastness of this event. Some grandiose understanding of the human condition that only a disaster of [...]
Michael Martin Calamity Is A Wave Called Sally I’m having breakfast with Sally. We all know Sally. No, not April’s friend, this is the one who used to date Mark. Yeah, he’s still in love with her. But I’m the one eating with her. This is December 28, 2004 at 12:06 PM. Oh, I guess [...]
Indian Ocean By Avi Nocella I’m not quite sure what I’ve been looking for, scanning the headlines and tsunami articles over recent weeks. What I found was an understanding of what happened; an earthquake and ensuing tidal wave ravaged coastal India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and other countries extending as far as western Africa, killing [...]
Bethany Lewis Each week, millions of Americans kick back and watch as Ty Pennington and his crew of craftsman on Extreme Home Makeover build a dream home for a well-deserving, needy family. Families suffering from the effects of poverty, cancer, handicap, or lost loved ones, are sent on a dream vacation and watch on TV [...]
Valerie Heruska Collateral tsunami Hollywood is home to the most notorious box- office competitors. They’re always trying to see who is able to come up with the most realistic disasters, so that the audience is in awe and come back to see the movie again and again. Hollywood has caught on to America’s obsession with [...]
David Coulson Disasters and the Compulsion to Watch Them It is no secret that television news ratings soar in response to catastrophe. Reports of cable news addiction were widespread following September the 11th. The response has apparently been no different in subsequent disasters as well as following the recent tsunami disaster along the coast of [...]
Jana Nyman Bottomless American Pocketbooks Maybe I seem boorish, selfish, or uncouth when I say that I don’t understand why my government’s money is being sent halfway around the world. I’m only being honest. The money my government extracts from my paychecks every month could be going places a little closer to my home; places [...]