A Misanthropist Moment

Current Reading: Myths of the North American Indians, by Lewis Spence

Inspirational Quote: If you're looking for inspiration, I recommend not reading the following post.

First: Haiti.

Earthquakes are remarkable phenomena. Like hurricanes and tornados they remind me that for all our technological advancement, for as often as we look around at the environment we've transformed, we are not the masters of our domain. To our planet our human concerns are nothing. Faith, love, art, science, even existence are of no consequence to continental plates and vagrant air masses. As "Life After People" shows, the planet would get along fine without us. Maybe better, because there are so many of us.

But from a human (and humane) perspective, what's happened in Haiti is tragic. So many dead, injured and dying. So many looting and stealing and stockpiling supplies to feed a black market that must, by now, be staggering in its reach. Yet I haven't seen it mentioned on the news. I've heard no reports on those who are making a killing off the billions that are pouring into Haiti. There is profit to be made, and so there must be those who are making it at the cost of lives and suffering. Because this is a facet of the human animal: we are not a moral species.

Second: Late Night Television.

In other news, Conan O'Brien has lost his job. Jay Leno is getting his old job back. David Letterman is having a field day. The masses seem split between O'Brien and Leno. I'm split between disgust and loathing.

I think I've seen far too many people who have lost their jobs and who did not have million-dollar homes in Los Angeles or New York, who did not make more in one evening than most of us are likely to see in our lives. Why are so many people paying attention to this? Personally? I'd rather fire Jay, Conan, Letterman and every executive at NBC, then blow my meager savings on buying them shovels and plane tickets to Haiti. Let them dig for bodies and scrounge for food. Maybe they'll come back with some perspective. Maybe they won't come back at all. Either is fine with me.

We live in a society where a person who plays a doctor on television makes more pretending to save fictional lives than does a real doctor trying to save real lives. We live in a society where millions of dollars are spent on cell-phones and ipods while the food bank down the road from my house pleads for donations because my neighbors don't have enough to pay for groceries and shelter at the same time. We live in a society where celebrities are patted on the back for organizing telethons to extract money from people who have lost their houses and watched their cities drown when they and their circle of friends could donate every penny they own and still not be reduced to the circumstances of those from whom they are soliciting donations.

And this is one of the most advanced societies our species has ever developed.

Please understand. I like people. I love my family and friends. I know other people love theirs, and that the loss of any one of us is a tragedy to someone.

Still: Looking at the whole overpopulated species of homo modernis, I think we could use a good meteor strike.