Part Three, Dispatches from the Edge
"We like to think we're so advanced. We like to imagine we have protection from our own dark impulses. The truth is, it doesn't take much for all of that to be stripped away. Desperate people sometimes do terrible things....the lights go out, the temperatures rise, and very quickly we get in touch with emotions that the cool air keeps at bay. We are capable of anything. I've seen it again and again. Great compassion, terrible carnage-the choice is up to us."
In Anderson Cooper's "Dispatches from the Edge," the CNN reporter documents his journeys in the field through some of this world's most recent traumatizing disasters. Using personal stories of heartache and confusion over the dramatic and widely publicized suicide of his brother and death of his father, Cooper attempts a reconciliation with both his own past, and the personal stories of loss and tragedy in areas affected by the tsunami, the war in Iraq, Sarajevo, Somalia, Niger, and New Orleans.
One cant deny that Cooper is a man on a mission. One that seeks out the worst of the worst and truly attempts to tell stories as they are...with all of the carnage and danger of a war zone, the disease and filth of natural disasters, and the inhumanities of famine affecting children. Surprisingly unbiased, I think this is a book every American citizen should read. It's a book about the world and how it operates. It's a book about the life that is a reality for much of this planet and how different it is from the life we live in front of the t.v. in America. Best of all, it's a book that breaches the naivete most of us feel when we fall asleep in our comfortable, suburban, U.S. homes. Maybe a book that will actually encourage someone into positive action. Even if it's just one....
"I wished I knew how to explain it to them. It's as if a window opens, and you realize the world has been re-formed. I wanted to see the starvation. I needed to remind myself of its reality. I worry that if I get too comfortable, too complacent, I'll lose all feeling, all sensation." -Anderson Cooper, explaining to his friends why he is cutting his Rwandan vacation short to witness the estimated 3.5 million Nigereans at severe risk of starvation.
In Anderson Cooper's "Dispatches from the Edge," the CNN reporter documents his journeys in the field through some of this world's most recent traumatizing disasters. Using personal stories of heartache and confusion over the dramatic and widely publicized suicide of his brother and death of his father, Cooper attempts a reconciliation with both his own past, and the personal stories of loss and tragedy in areas affected by the tsunami, the war in Iraq, Sarajevo, Somalia, Niger, and New Orleans.
One cant deny that Cooper is a man on a mission. One that seeks out the worst of the worst and truly attempts to tell stories as they are...with all of the carnage and danger of a war zone, the disease and filth of natural disasters, and the inhumanities of famine affecting children. Surprisingly unbiased, I think this is a book every American citizen should read. It's a book about the world and how it operates. It's a book about the life that is a reality for much of this planet and how different it is from the life we live in front of the t.v. in America. Best of all, it's a book that breaches the naivete most of us feel when we fall asleep in our comfortable, suburban, U.S. homes. Maybe a book that will actually encourage someone into positive action. Even if it's just one....
"I wished I knew how to explain it to them. It's as if a window opens, and you realize the world has been re-formed. I wanted to see the starvation. I needed to remind myself of its reality. I worry that if I get too comfortable, too complacent, I'll lose all feeling, all sensation." -Anderson Cooper, explaining to his friends why he is cutting his Rwandan vacation short to witness the estimated 3.5 million Nigereans at severe risk of starvation.
posted by carlymarie | 11:40 PM
5 Comments:
One of the most fascinating bits of travel writing I've read was a story about a journy through Uzbekistan to the evaporating Aral Sea. The writer claimed that it was, environmentally speaking, the worst place on earth and his descriptions proved it to my satisfaction. After reading it I had an incredible desire to go there and see "the worst place on Earth." It's a strange but powerful desire. Mike read the same story and reported the same feeling. He and I should probably go together to get the 2 for 1 deal on the anti-diptherial-asiatic-ebola-nosferatu-surrey-cruise inoculation you need to just to enter Uzbekistan.
I'm sure people are elbowing their way to the doctor for that deal! I think it was offered to me at my last checkup. Right after they offered the flu shot.
I agree with the value of such dispatches from the edge. But, I also doubt most Americans really care that they don't know about the suffering of those in Darfur, Chechnya, Kashmir, etc. If a person knows about atrocities or suffering, then a (moral) person would also feel an obligation to do something about it. For many Americans (and those in other parts of the West really), feeling an obligation or responsibility to something other than their own desire for comfort and happiness would only serve to hinder their pursuit of these goals. Thomas Freidman (of The World is Flat fame) wrote in an article a couple years ago that every American college student should be required to do a year in some sort of service. It wouldn't necessarily have to be overseas, but the point is to open the eyes of the future leaders and businessmen in a way that the rest of our culture doesn't provide for. It’s much harder to ignore the plight of the widows and poor around the world if one has seen them firsthand. I know that witnessing refugee camps in Azerbaijan from the Nagorny-Karabagh conflict left a vivid image in my mind.
This morning I read a very sad account of what is going on in Chechnya.
Nick, I’m still up for an expedition to the Aral Sea someday.
An interesting tidbit I read today is that only about 25% of Americans even have a passport. Granted that the popular "international" destination for many Americans is Mexico, no passport needed. Not that you couldn't find help getting back across the border should you misplace your identity.
I have a passport. It doesn't have a single stamp though. Does that still count? Obviously the hope is there....just not the opportunity.
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