Priorities

I ' ll outsource to Mark Sumner the necessary rant about the abandonment of Puerto Rico. The extent of the catastrophe is almost unimaginable. Nearly all of the crops have been destroyed, the entire island is without electricity except for a few generators powering hospitals and other essential services. Telecommunication is mostly down and much of the island is still incommunicado. Overflights have revealed washed out and blocked roads so that travel to many places is impossible. There can be no doubt but that people dependent on oxygen, insulin or other technical resources to stay alive have already died. It won ' t be long before people are literally starving.It hasn ' t been so long ago that you can ' t remember that non-stop, wall-to-wall coverage of the disaster in Southeast Texas, and Florida. So what is on the front page of all of the corporate media web sites right now? The twitter war between Orange Julius and the NFL. Almost nothing about Puerto Rico. And Twittler himself, by the way, has said nothing about it either. Not one word.And where is the massive response from the navy, air force and coast guard? Where is the televised fundraising concert featuring all the big pop stars? This is crazy.Update:Case in point, on the front page of the NYT today there is absolutely no mention of Puerto Rico. Headlines are travel ban, NFL protests and attendant tweetstorm, German elections, budget bus lines.Yes, some relief has arrived but it is not nearly enough. We ' re t...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs