The Katrina Wake Up Call
http://www.ivyjoy.com/fables/threepigs.html
Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya has been offering refuge a lot longer than the week-long struggle New Orleans and the rest of America has contended with the last week of August, 2005.
2005. Where are we in the paradigm shift?
America is wealthy -- so wealthy we've risen to super power status and are the primary care-giver and father figure (mother figure) for the rest of the world. When destruction comes, America is called. When the world is policed, America is blamed. There's a book, Mom I HATE YOU, Can You Drive Me To The Mall? or something like that. Charlie says the world is full of adolescent thinking. He is right.
What has unraveled in America is the peeling back that yes, indeed, there's a bit of third world struggle existing in our cities and on our soil. It took Mother Nature to expose this. It isn't the revealing of hard working immigrant poverty making its way in the land of opportunity, but the exposure of populations with a different sense of civic responsibility, immobility and enabled victimization. One storm has, and will continue to have, created intellectual tsunamis amongst all political parties, socio-economic backgrounds and "races".
Like teenagers, we will all be pointing our fingers: Blame Blame Blame.
In the book KING MAGICIAN WARRIOR LOVER, the writers make a statement which asks people to think beyond the archetypes and wonders how much we are ruled by "boy" mentality over "man" thinking. A boy doesn't go all the way with his thinking and actions, but instead performs out of immaturity. The man makes rational decisions and is able to see the world from a mature perspective.
Those who point fingers are children -- rather, teenagers caught in the Holden Caufield school of brats.
Greek tragedy teaches "A happy human, Ha" and expects "the horror! the horror!" as what human life is.
America the free does the opposite. Here, the roads are paved with gold, and we are able to fool ourselves that life is more content than what tragedy brings to the table.
Our tables are wet.
Yet, I think there's much to be learned. There is not another culture, an entity, with the aim America has. The wealth that is dispersed amongst the many is a historical phenomenon which in all actuality gave birth to a soup bowl such as New Orleans, and a coast line similar to that of the Gulf Coast. There you have evidence of our prosperity along the beauty of coastal living, but you also have the truth that beyond the prosperity exists all who are involved to keep that prosperity comfortable. Comfort takes work at many levels.
Katrina washed away the facade. It is true that some had the capacity to leave and others did not, and it is in the simple question of why "some" didn't leave that the disparities of American culture are most obvious.
A rapper on NBC blames Bush as does a military mom whose battle is equally childish. Both fingerpointers are applauded for beginning the search for what is really going on, but both are guilty for boy/girl thinking in a time where all Americans need to think like men and women.
Tragedy exposes truth and the raw core from which every being exists. Those who blame show their true nature and that is they are not strong enough to handle the maturity necessary to sustain the direction America has always been heading. America, whether politically left or right in thought, has always been heading towards the good. They spiral towards making opportunity for the many -- the cultural and racial many -- unlike other parts of the world. The bigger picture is more telling than this recent New Orleans snap shot.
When the wolf comes to blow down the houses of the pigs, shouldn't the pigs be responsible for the actions they took before the wolf came? After all, opportunities prevail on American soil and the only chains which bind us in this cave are the ones we place on ourselves. If I recall the three little pigs correctly, only one pig had the foresight to understand the damage a wolf can create.
Wolves exist as culture, nature, personality or behavior and no one can be blamed for not preparing through EDUCATION, FORESIGHT, HARD WORK, COMPASSION and DEDICATION, traits necessary to protect one self from the wraths that inevitably come.
Wraths comes and will continue to come, and when they come after me....you....us, there's no room to blame anyone but ourselves if we aren't prepared for the "truth" that shit happens and at times, it is beyond shitty.
Katrina can be blamed, but I'm a strong believer that everything is for a reason and what doesn't kill us will make us stronger. She has caused all of us to freeze in our place and witness the horror life can provoke at the snap of a finger.
We have refugees seeking refuge for what some are saying is the first time in America and absolutely despicable.
Yet, refugee camps and day to day horror is a cultural norm in some cultures (ie: Kakuma). Africa has never been able to put up the facade, nor to hide from the truth that we are mortals who will never be able to understand the ways of all the GODS. What makes us respond differently to tragedy in America, is that we live in a society that actually promotes the mask that we can hide from it.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
creeps in this petty pace from day to day
to the last syllable of recorded time
and all our yesterdays have lighted truth
the way to dusty death.
out out, brief candle.
life is but a walking shadow,
a poor player who struts and frets his hour
upon the stage and then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.
Yet, it can signify everything if we remember
we're all struggling with this humanity thing together.
Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya has been offering refuge a lot longer than the week-long struggle New Orleans and the rest of America has contended with the last week of August, 2005.
2005. Where are we in the paradigm shift?
America is wealthy -- so wealthy we've risen to super power status and are the primary care-giver and father figure (mother figure) for the rest of the world. When destruction comes, America is called. When the world is policed, America is blamed. There's a book, Mom I HATE YOU, Can You Drive Me To The Mall? or something like that. Charlie says the world is full of adolescent thinking. He is right.
What has unraveled in America is the peeling back that yes, indeed, there's a bit of third world struggle existing in our cities and on our soil. It took Mother Nature to expose this. It isn't the revealing of hard working immigrant poverty making its way in the land of opportunity, but the exposure of populations with a different sense of civic responsibility, immobility and enabled victimization. One storm has, and will continue to have, created intellectual tsunamis amongst all political parties, socio-economic backgrounds and "races".
Like teenagers, we will all be pointing our fingers: Blame Blame Blame.
In the book KING MAGICIAN WARRIOR LOVER, the writers make a statement which asks people to think beyond the archetypes and wonders how much we are ruled by "boy" mentality over "man" thinking. A boy doesn't go all the way with his thinking and actions, but instead performs out of immaturity. The man makes rational decisions and is able to see the world from a mature perspective.
Those who point fingers are children -- rather, teenagers caught in the Holden Caufield school of brats.
Greek tragedy teaches "A happy human, Ha" and expects "the horror! the horror!" as what human life is.
America the free does the opposite. Here, the roads are paved with gold, and we are able to fool ourselves that life is more content than what tragedy brings to the table.
Our tables are wet.
Yet, I think there's much to be learned. There is not another culture, an entity, with the aim America has. The wealth that is dispersed amongst the many is a historical phenomenon which in all actuality gave birth to a soup bowl such as New Orleans, and a coast line similar to that of the Gulf Coast. There you have evidence of our prosperity along the beauty of coastal living, but you also have the truth that beyond the prosperity exists all who are involved to keep that prosperity comfortable. Comfort takes work at many levels.
Katrina washed away the facade. It is true that some had the capacity to leave and others did not, and it is in the simple question of why "some" didn't leave that the disparities of American culture are most obvious.
A rapper on NBC blames Bush as does a military mom whose battle is equally childish. Both fingerpointers are applauded for beginning the search for what is really going on, but both are guilty for boy/girl thinking in a time where all Americans need to think like men and women.
Tragedy exposes truth and the raw core from which every being exists. Those who blame show their true nature and that is they are not strong enough to handle the maturity necessary to sustain the direction America has always been heading. America, whether politically left or right in thought, has always been heading towards the good. They spiral towards making opportunity for the many -- the cultural and racial many -- unlike other parts of the world. The bigger picture is more telling than this recent New Orleans snap shot.
When the wolf comes to blow down the houses of the pigs, shouldn't the pigs be responsible for the actions they took before the wolf came? After all, opportunities prevail on American soil and the only chains which bind us in this cave are the ones we place on ourselves. If I recall the three little pigs correctly, only one pig had the foresight to understand the damage a wolf can create.
Wolves exist as culture, nature, personality or behavior and no one can be blamed for not preparing through EDUCATION, FORESIGHT, HARD WORK, COMPASSION and DEDICATION, traits necessary to protect one self from the wraths that inevitably come.
Wraths comes and will continue to come, and when they come after me....you....us, there's no room to blame anyone but ourselves if we aren't prepared for the "truth" that shit happens and at times, it is beyond shitty.
Katrina can be blamed, but I'm a strong believer that everything is for a reason and what doesn't kill us will make us stronger. She has caused all of us to freeze in our place and witness the horror life can provoke at the snap of a finger.
We have refugees seeking refuge for what some are saying is the first time in America and absolutely despicable.
Yet, refugee camps and day to day horror is a cultural norm in some cultures (ie: Kakuma). Africa has never been able to put up the facade, nor to hide from the truth that we are mortals who will never be able to understand the ways of all the GODS. What makes us respond differently to tragedy in America, is that we live in a society that actually promotes the mask that we can hide from it.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
creeps in this petty pace from day to day
to the last syllable of recorded time
and all our yesterdays have lighted truth
the way to dusty death.
out out, brief candle.
life is but a walking shadow,
a poor player who struts and frets his hour
upon the stage and then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing.
Yet, it can signify everything if we remember
we're all struggling with this humanity thing together.
posted by Bryan Ripley Crandall at 9:55 AM
1 comments
