Calamity Brings Out Our True Nature

The enormity of the calamity in the Indian Ocean is beyond human comprehension. The death toll, as I write this, is now above 76,000 and counting. There is every reason to expect it to top 100,000 when all is said and done, and that's before whatever epidemics break out in the afflicted areas. To put that in perspective, the quake and tsunami was just about as deadly to humanity as a whole, proportionately speaking, as the 9/11 attacks were to Americans.

My mind can't encompass this much loss and grief. I can get a handle, though, on some of the imbecility and pig-headedness the disaster has exposed:

• Topping the charts of the most egregious news story that I've come across about the disaster is the Associated Press report that a Czech supermodel vacationing in Phuket survived the tsunami. Petra Nemcova was the cover girl for Sports Illustrated's 2003 Swimsuit issue. Does this somehow make her life worth thousands of others?

• As Josh Marshall put it, President's latest response to the tsunami tragedy: badmouth Bill Clinton. A report in the Washington Post quoted a White House aide who explained Bush's absence from the quorum of world leaders cutting short their holiday vacations to return to work in response to the crisis: "The president wanted to be fully briefed on our efforts. He didn't want to make a symbolic statement about 'We feel your pain.' " Another top White House official said, "Actions speak louder than words," a top Bush aide said, describing the president's view of his appropriate role. Bush's actions while the bodies are being buried in mass graves: to stay on his ranch, where he is clearing brush and going bicycling. Once again, Bush's reaction to crisis and calamity is to hide. I wonder if he used the opportunity of his seclusion to reread "The Pet Goat"?

• The otherwise-sensible Juan Cole sees the Indian Ocean quake and tsunami as a foreshadowing of rising sea levels due to global warming. This is about as silly as seeing a series of storms in Tornado Alley as a warning about a growing threat to nationwide highway safety. It is sufficiently silly, in fact, that Cole has found it necessary to rewrite this post a number of times to make it more and more clear that he knows there is no connection between the earthquake and global warming. Nevertheless, the size of the gaffe can only give ammunition to the little green facists who would like to see Cole silenced, or at least ignored.