The Blind Leading the Blinded...

I didn't want to write about Katrina and the waves today.

So, I wrote about Debbie Harry instead.

But I found myself earlier this evening unable to turn off the news, unable to ignore the streaming video at CNN's website.

I couldn't (or wouldn't) stop myself from watching the dead bodies floating in the water. It hurt my heart hearing the screams of children in the background in almost every report coming out of the South. From every news vehicle. On every network. Even Fox.

Children are armed with guns and are raping other children in New Orleans tonight.

Thousands of people are dead, or feared dead, and thousand more my die soon as resources arrive too little, too late.

Fingers are being pointed at officials for being ineffective and for squandering resources and tax dollars.

Critics are chiding those who were too poor or too foolhardy to leave the city.

It's ugliness and inhumanity and cruelty and depravity in everything I watch and hear.

And it seems too easy to just turn it all off and escape into the frill and fluff of distraction and make-believe.

And so I turn to history for guidance.

I'm turning tonight to one of my childhood heroes for encouragement. But I'm not choosing fiction, so Lynda Carter is staying on her shelf.

Instead, I turn to the words of Helen Keller.

Unable to see or hear this world, she found a way to make meaning out of this horrible human mess we call life.

She once said:

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings.

And perhaps that's just a platitude from some blind-ass, deaf, white lady from Alabama -- but I find some comfort in her words.

Seeing and hearing the horrors of this world almost broke my spirit tonight.

But I will not lose hope.

I'll refuse, resist and revolt if I have to...

But I will not lose hope.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Ms. Keller.

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

And through all this mess, all the horror that still awaits this nation, I hope I can find someone's vision for this country that I can believe in again.

Otherwise, I'll have to find, start or create a vision of my own.

Posted September 1, 2005 08:36 PM