Sunday 10 September 2017

Rationing the news.

I have to make myself watch the news at the moment. The political shenanigans in the UK and America are painful enough (the bungling might be comic if the potential consequences weren't so catastrophic) - but they pale into insignificance in the light of the recent onslaught of ‘natural disasters’. (The ‘..’ indicates a recognition that some of these may be the result of man-made climate change.) 

As one storm followed another - have we forgotten those who died in the mudslide in Sierra Leone? The floods in Asia that I wrote about last week, and those in China? Hot on their heels came the storms and hurricanes currently battering the Caribbean and America. A huge earthquake in Mexico has been relegated to the inside pages of the newspapers. 

Everywhere, or so it seems, people are homeless. Refugees from Africa and the Middle East brave the waves of the Mediterranean. Bangladesh - those areas not under water - are flooded with Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar.

It’s overwhelming - all this need and trauma. But we still have to deal with the realities of life. Domestic stuff has to go on - we need to decide what to have for supper and if we have enough milk. Lawns need mowing. Children need kisses before heading off to school.

I can only speak for myself here - I have to ration the news. If I catch every bulletin I risk being paralysed by the sheer extent of it all. But that way madness lies. And failure to look after the daily trivia helps no one. But there are times, when I musing over which book to choose in the library or picking over apples in the market, that I find myself reflecting on the insignificance of such choices. 


It's a dissonance that I find deeply uncomfortable. I don't have a solution - and maybe that's fine. We should not turn our backs - nor our feelings - on the millions of people in such terrible need. But there is no point on wallowing in their reflected misery - we have lives to lead. Few of us are able to  up sticks and do anything practical to help (though we can contribute to appeals). All we can do, it seems, is notice the enormity of it all and then keep the show on the road in our own small corners of the world.

6 comments:

  1. Yes, I agree, it is easy to be overwhelmed. We need a few lights: family, scenery, lovely music.

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    1. We'd be totally lost without them, wouldn't we?

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  2. I'm with you too on this one, Jo. Of course disasters do strike our own natuons from time to time and it seems fitting that we don't dwell on those either. I've been dumbstruck by the scale of the recent catastrophes, but as you say, we need to keep living our lives. It's how we keep our sanity and our optimism because we need both!

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    1. It's a fine line, isn't it Val? And maybe it's ok to fall off the line occasionally.

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  3. You are right, Jo. I find it quite hard to keep away from the news, but in fact there is nothing any of us can really do about the big picture, and it's always been the same. Who knows what has happened in the past, when there was no media at all? I found an old magazine from the early 1830s which described a huge fire which blotted out the sun for days. I'd never heard of it.

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  4. Havana is unrecognisable. My city has been dealt a devastating blow by Irma.

    A very sensible post. Thanks.

    Greetings from London.

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