| September 2005 |
| Sun |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
Sat |
| |
|
|
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
| 4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
| 11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
| 18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
| 25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
|
| Aug Oct |
Subscribe to this blog in Radio:
E-mail this blog's author, Scott Rosenberg:  |
|
As I've tried to process the cruel "The city is safe!" "No it isn't!" procession of news streaming out of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, one of my initial reactions was, "Well, build a city under sea level, what do you expect?" Not charitable or humane, of course, but you can't censor your own thoughts. It didn't take more than a few seconds, though, to realize that the reaction wasn't just mean-spirited but foolish: at the moment I had it, I was sitting in my house in the middle of a major earthquake zone. Floods and storms, quakes and fires -- we do our best to cocoon ourselves from danger and feel safe, but one way or another, we're all nature's pawns.
Americans have always rebuilt in the wake of disaster: The city I live near and work in, San Francisco, has done so more than once. But plainly this is neither an easy nor a quick prospect in the case of Katrina. I've never been to New Orleans, though I've enjoyed its music enough -- and spent enough time in the kitchen attempting to duplicate its recipes -- that I always intended to go one day. I hope I'll still have the chance. More importantly, for the people caught up in this tragedy, I hope for food and shelter, safety and strength. (You probably don't need them again, but here are a couple of links with information about how you can help.)
And I hope (against hope) that our nation gets its priorities clearer and begins to reverse this decade's trend of underinvesting in public services and infrastructure to support improvident tax cuts and a misguided, mismanaged war. We'll come to our senses eventually, right?
|
|
Late at night, after the kids have gone to bed and progress on my book has run its course for the day, I've been working on editing a little family movie chronicling five birthdays. I'm using a way out-of-date edition of Adobe Premiere, software I learned to use years ago. It ain't broke (except that it chokes on my newest camera's full-size JPEG files -- they need to be resized before import), so why fix it?
As I pleasurably fiddle over fine edits and transitions, I've learned a new little lesson: when you pick your background music for a video you're making, be sure to pick music you really, really enjoy. Forget loops -- you'll go mad. Your eventual audience is only going to hear this stuff once or twice; you're going to hear it over and over and over again. Choose wisely and lovingly.
|
|
|
