Charley's Hammer

Hurricane Charley dropped the hammer on central Florida, killing 17 people and causing fantastic destruction. While not the "nightmare scenario" as one commentator characterized the storm, it did roar through heavily populated areas. In the aftermath, the anger I expressed below has intensified. The pictures coming out of the damage zone are awful - smashed houses, flipped cars, uprooted trees, the whole nine yards.

So now the sensationalist television media, already engaged in a self-masturbatory orgy with the fraudulent reporting of the storm's strength, has plenty of video to feed their absurd screen graphics and faux-sympathetic desk anchors (dead weights, all). In America, even after surviving a deadly hurricane, one is still nonexistent until the TV cameras arrive to interview stunned people against a back drop of their life's wreckage. While these devastated people grapple with the overwhelming reality of losing all of their wordly possessions, thigh-rubbing "news personalities" suck up their bewildered pain.

I understand the exploitative TV side of the equation, but I'll likely never understand the victim's participation.