Less than a month ago, there was an earthquake in Haiti that killed, according to the latest body count, 200,000 people. On camera, on the evening news, we mourned, we cried, we realized, as if by magic, what our priorities really are. Even the rock stars and movie stars rose to the occasion, reminding us all of our great good fortune. The ‘music community’ came together after its most self-celebratory awards show, shed a few tears and cut a new recording for those poor, poor people in Haiti. And Angelina showed up there recently, waving and smiling at the cameras and the peasants as she continues her ongoing audition for the role of Mother Teresa’s replacement. I sit in the relative comfort of my life in Portland and gag at this sort of foolishness. That’s because this morning, we’re back to business as usual, and by that I mean bitching about the weather on the national news. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, complained one inconvenienced mommy who is frustrated with the schools, the daycare, the pick-up and drop-off ordeals. Poor thing. Another woman was interviewed at the airport in Washington, where her flights have been rescheduled four times since Sunday. She’s trying to go on vacation, she explained, and what the airlines expect her to put up with is ridiculous. I’m not sure which offends me more – the fact that she expects anyone to feel sorry for her because of her botched vacation itinerary, or the fact that she thinks the airlines control the weather. Finally, my favorite: a man who looked like he could skip many, many meals and still remain overweight is annoyed by the fact that deliveries to his local grocery have been delayed due to impassable roads. “There’s nothing here,” he said as the camera panned over a pretty bare meat case. It was wonderful to wake up this morning in my own bed and watch the news on my own couch, drinking a cup of coffee from a canister that I can buy for next to nothing, which is probably thanks to the fact that someone, along with his or her family, somewhere in Central America or South America is living way below what we’d consider the poverty line. So I poured myself another cup and watched some more of the news, sneering at the crybabies, imagining them flown off to Haiti to see how well they could fend for themselves.
