Guest Jaxxy Posted August 31, 2008 Report Posted August 31, 2008 May Good Luck Be Your Friend AdultFanFiction.net keeps the inhabitants of New Orleans, surrounding areas, and those who love them, in mind, in this time of impending crisis. Let us be brave for life. Let us straighten after the pain, with the trees, after the rain. Let us see, even when life brings us blinding things. And, through it all, let us keep our sight, and see that everything will be alright. For darkness yields the light. I wish you safety, strength, perseverance, and ultimate joy. My ardent love and truest hopes are with you -- please, come back to us healthy, happy, and soon. I will pray for you all day, in my way; in all of your ways, I beg you to be blessed. -- Jaxxy
Guest Monsterking Posted September 2, 2008 Report Posted September 2, 2008 Though i am not from new orleans i do wish to add on to this by adding my name to the list of well wishers for the people down there hope this is appropiate!
WotanAnubis Posted September 2, 2008 Report Posted September 2, 2008 So, err, why didn't we get a similar Site Announcement when war broke out between Georgia and Russia?
Guest Jaxxy Posted September 9, 2008 Report Posted September 9, 2008 So, err, why didn't we get a similar Site Announcement when war broke out between Georgia and Russia? :emerge from boundless pile of web pages & email: I feel that the common person is already well enough aware of (and much more hindered to do anything immediate about) wars. People generally peruse fiction in order to forget, at least for a while. That said, too many natural disasters are becussedly underplayed by the press. Far more importantly, these are not things we -- fifty times removed from "where the magic happens"-- must stand by and watch, near-ineffectually, from the sidelines, such as war. New Orleans (which has seen what is likely the most "special case" natural disaster in recent times, save 2004's Christmas tsunami) had only just buried the last of Hurricane Katrina's -- aftermath's -- victims, as her brother's evacuations began. With a thing like this, Joe Intarwebz can, simply, immediately, and from his chair, all but circumvent a similar clusterfuck with the PayPal of a dollar, euro, or lari. Also: By nature, AdultFanFiction.net has more than its share of political concerns; a tiresome thing, considering it is meant to be a means of temporary escape. There are multitudinous forums, blogs, and websites dedicated to other types of politics, and although this cannot be one of those, I saw no reason (read: excuse) to be mute. If an avoidable tragedy is of dire importance to millions of people, a thing I know our community can help with, and has been gravely underestimated elsewhere, I will likely write about it (stipulating my awareness is as it should be). So, I wrote in the hopes of raising awareness, and inspiring proactivity, in people that may have (due to inadequate and non-specific media coverage, or the very preoccupation with things such as war) not even known about it. I have a perfectly good megaphone in my hands; with very little effort, these kinds of words could save a thousand lives. What would be my excuse not to write? And, there's the ever-present... :be consumed by next wave of toil:
WotanAnubis Posted September 12, 2008 Report Posted September 12, 2008 So, I wrote in the hopes of raising awareness, and inspiring proactivity, in people that may have (due to inadequate and non-specific media coverage, or the very preoccupation with things such as war) not even known about it. I have a perfectly good megaphone in my hands; with very little effort, these kinds of words could save a thousand lives. What would be my excuse not to write? Dude, I think everybody was aware of Gustav. Lord knows the news wouldn't shut up about it. Meanwhile, I've heard very little about, say, the flooding of Brahmaputra River displacing about 2.1 million people, killing 24 and potentially causing an epidemic. But then again, that's just India. Not nearly such a "special case" as New Orleans. Finally, the fact that you seem to view this site as your personal megaphone is... worrying. If this were your Livejournal or MySpace page or whatever you might have been right. Sure, you may own this site, but you're not the only one paying for it and I'm pretty sure you're not the only one maintaining it. And, let's face it, you're not the main reason people come to this site anyway. So using the front page to promote your own pet causes seems... egocentric.
Guest MortiferLascivio Posted September 12, 2008 Report Posted September 12, 2008 She's just expressing her concern and wishes for the safety of the people in New Orleans. I hardly see that as being egocentric.
WotanAnubis Posted September 13, 2008 Report Posted September 13, 2008 She's just expressing her concern and wishes for the safety of the people in New Orleans. I hardly see that as being egocentric. No, but viewing the site's front page as her own personal megaphone is. Expressing that she'll beg and pray for the people of New Orleans, but not anybody else beset by similar or worse disasters does indeed speak of something rather different.
JayDee Posted September 13, 2008 Report Posted September 13, 2008 Could WotanAnubis still be nursing an old grudge against Jaxxy, and have nothing else to do? The people should be told.. Only, 99.9% of the people probably don't care 'bout a personal 'net grudge.
Guest Flesh_Seraph Posted September 13, 2008 Report Posted September 13, 2008 (edited) Expressing that she'll beg and pray for the people of New Orleans, but not anybody else beset by similar or worse disasters does indeed speak of something rather different. Anyone making this criticism has to know that it's a very tough criticism. For something as problematic as this, I would like to see a solution proposed along with the criticism- otherwise it just seems like gratuitous needling. What criterion does a disaster or other unfortunate event need to meet before it gets a front page mention? What percentage of a nation's population needs to die (or be in jeopardy) for it to warrant public well-wishes? Would it be better to use a flat number? Should nations with better human rights records be given more weight? Who determines the strength of a human rights record? Do we go by Amnesty International? What about nations where conflicts are ongoing? How often should well-wishes be posted in such a case? Should we go by calender or some milestone of bodycount? Whose numbers should we trust? Aggressor, defender, Red Cross or United Nations? What about discrepencies of news coverage in different areas? African conflicts receive a lot less press than Eurasian ones, but the bodycount is many times higher- should we have a different threshold for each? Should it be Jaxxy's responsibility to check the news coverage so she's on top of just to whom she needs to be sending out wishes? Should severity of the act play in? Canada, where I live, isn't known for violent acts, but earlier this year a young man named Tim MacLean was stabbed 40 times, beheaded, and had parts of his body eaten by an insane attacker on a Greyhound Bus. Does Tim MacLean get a front page well-wish? How do we judge severity? In some cultures, having the head or limbs seperated from the body prior to death means your afterlife won't go down as it should. Do we have to weigh that additional grief in? How should we handle Israel and Palestine? Which side do we mourn? Both? Hopefully I've illustrated how impossible it is. We should just take the site owner's well-wishes in the spirit in which they were given- a non-political, honest expression of sympathy with no particular agenda. Any omissions she makes in terms of wishing things well are probably not a calculated "fuck you" to any particular event but just a reflection of which events have affected her most deeply. - FS Edited September 13, 2008 by Flesh_Seraph
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