Wednesday, September 21, 2005

surreal

my wife stumbled across this photo-journal blog of the katrina aftermath: eye of the storm. also of note is a site linked off of the first: vincent laforet photography. walking through the pictures seems like taking a tour of a sci-fi-ish world of total and complete devastation...

2 comments:

elnellis said...

estoy totalmente de acuerdo, el uso de eufenismos en este pais es impresionante. se ha creado una cultura en la cual los "derechos" de uno han suplantado las "responsabilidades" de uno. usando tu ejemplo- "tengo el derecho de comer como un pinche cerdo y tambien de que nadie me diga gordo" -que paso con la responsabilidad de cuidarse bien? y me encanta la palabra que traes, requerdo cuando pego la huracan paulina hace mucho tiempo, estabamos ayudando a los "damnificados" porque eso fue exactamente lo que fueron. talvez se podria decir- "the damned"- pero aun en escribirlo, se siente muy fuerte... indicativo de que yo tambien he sido parte del problema.

-for those spanishly-challenged, this is a continued conversation about the american tendancy towards euphamisms and struggle to name and own personal and national "planks."

elnellis said...

i forgot to mention the word jaime brought to the conversation. it is a word not used often, but reserved for the most extreme situations. i'm reminded of hurricane paulina in the late 90's that ravished the coast of southern mexico where my family lives. the "displaced persons" rightly referred to as "los damnificados"- loosely translated (as jaime noted, there is no dictionary translation) "the damned" or "those who have been damned." it's the only word that captures the reality of those people. yet the subsequent actions of relief and reconstruction bring the hope that any "damnificado" longs for. at any rate, it's an interesting dance in euphimisims, translations and language.