Full Circle Associates

This post from Badgerbag gives a lot of pause for reflection. story from Houston, today

Read this long post by Pheret1 about her Sunday at the Houston shelter. I know that the stories she tells are only a few of the people she talked with today.

I keep thinking about how the Houston Chronicle's domeblog started out honest-sounding, like a real blog, with human, personal reactions; and then it turned into this gross PR thing, not a blog at all. Not honest. Too slick. Like, "let's have a heartwarming story about how great things are going." Rah rah!

The honesty in Pheret's story of her day! Compare to that article the other day about how people are "afraid" to leave the big shelters. Or the commenter on this blog lately who made it sound like the place wasn't chaotic or confusing.

As I have been following blogs since Katrina, I have been thinking about the polarity of raw, torrential pain and the healing balm of kindness and optimism. Too much pain and we go numb. Too much "cheerleading" and we fall into hollow falseness. But both are part of the experience and, in my view, needed. For the most part, blogs have offered both. The kindness of people like Grace and Badgerbag, along with the outrage of Badger and others.

katrina, hurricanekatrina, recovery2