Wednesday, December 29
Small world
Despite my silence here, I've been thinking about the thousands and thousands (and tens of thousands) of victims of the tsunamis. There really hasn't been much to say, I guess. Here on the edge of nowhere, it's hard to know what to do beside sharing a few of our greenbucks. We're so far away from what's happening (literally, I went and found our globe and sure enough, the Indian Ocean is complete opposite side of the world) it feels abstract, distanced, another of those regular third-world disasters (famines, earthquakes, typhoons) that kill thousands and barely merit a headline in my local daily, just that increasing death toll number: 8,000, 15,000, 28,000, 52,000. Today I saw 80,000.
I read those numbers and it doesn't really sink in. While I tend not to watch televised news, because TV images can distort reality (the nature of which in itself is an endless point of discussion among my friends), I spent some time late last night on international CNN watching amateur video images of the waves of water swirling around various hotel complexes, people clinging to trees and so on. It was something to see. TV makes the world smaller at the same time it's used to divide us.
Also yesterday I saw a line in an AP story from Thailand: "Khun Poom Jensen, the 21-year-old autistic grandson of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was among those killed." Believe it or not, we have a fairly close connection to Poom -- three degrees worth in Kevin Bacon terms (same as mine to Kevin himself). Our friend Julie, who is the special education teacher at our children's school and who we know from our days at the UU church here, has spent much of the past three or four summers in Thailand working with Poom and his teachers, teaching them how to work with his autism. (Think also of this: She tutors the grandson of the king of Thailand. Thailand = Siam. She's Anna in the 21st century real world version of The King and I.)
In an e-mail this morning she says: "Yes, Poom was the student I have been working with. It is such a sad thing. His death is no more important than all of the thousands of others, but it is close to my heart because I loved him. May the world take the time to help all those who were affected."
Our local paper has the story. LA Times has his story, too.
Anyway, like I said, I guess there really isn't much to say beyond I've been thinking about it. And there's not much we can do beyond sharing a little bit of our -- in comparison -- extreme wealth. And reflect on how lucky we are. And remember that, if I'm four relationships away from the King of Thailand, all of us on this planet are much more closely connected to each other than we may think or our governments pretend to be.
I read those numbers and it doesn't really sink in. While I tend not to watch televised news, because TV images can distort reality (the nature of which in itself is an endless point of discussion among my friends), I spent some time late last night on international CNN watching amateur video images of the waves of water swirling around various hotel complexes, people clinging to trees and so on. It was something to see. TV makes the world smaller at the same time it's used to divide us.
Also yesterday I saw a line in an AP story from Thailand: "Khun Poom Jensen, the 21-year-old autistic grandson of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was among those killed." Believe it or not, we have a fairly close connection to Poom -- three degrees worth in Kevin Bacon terms (same as mine to Kevin himself). Our friend Julie, who is the special education teacher at our children's school and who we know from our days at the UU church here, has spent much of the past three or four summers in Thailand working with Poom and his teachers, teaching them how to work with his autism. (Think also of this: She tutors the grandson of the king of Thailand. Thailand = Siam. She's Anna in the 21st century real world version of The King and I.)
In an e-mail this morning she says: "Yes, Poom was the student I have been working with. It is such a sad thing. His death is no more important than all of the thousands of others, but it is close to my heart because I loved him. May the world take the time to help all those who were affected."
Our local paper has the story. LA Times has his story, too.
Anyway, like I said, I guess there really isn't much to say beyond I've been thinking about it. And there's not much we can do beyond sharing a little bit of our -- in comparison -- extreme wealth. And reflect on how lucky we are. And remember that, if I'm four relationships away from the King of Thailand, all of us on this planet are much more closely connected to each other than we may think or our governments pretend to be.
