We’re conditioned for nothing to go wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re warned.\u00c2\u00a0 TV stops regular
programming.\u00c2\u00a0 Tells us to look out.<\/p>\n
And then nothing happens.<\/p>\n
We feel so safe.\u00c2\u00a0 We drive automobiles with multiple airbags.\u00c2\u00a0 We wear
helmets riding our bikes.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re protected.\u00c2\u00a0 It can’t happen to us.<\/p>\n
And then it does.\u00c2\u00a0 It fucks with something primal.\u00c2\u00a0 Something we take for
granted.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the ground.<\/p>\n
You can’t see an earthquake advancing, but the possibility of a temblor comes
with living in California.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not a matter of if, but when.\u00c2\u00a0 At least
that’s what they tell us.<\/p>\n
But we don’t listen.\u00c2\u00a0 We feel safe.\u00c2\u00a0 We experience some minor shaking, maybe
a tchotchke falls off the wall, but we’re all right.\u00c2\u00a0 Our loss is minor,
almost irrelevant.<\/p>\n
And then it shakes.\u00c2\u00a0 And shakes.<\/p>\n
The 1994 earthquake pushed me over the edge.<\/p>\n
Oh, the initial shaking was bad enough.\u00c2\u00a0 Crouched on my front lawn after
running out of the house watching the earth rise up and down like a theme park
ride, transformers exploding on telephone poles.\u00c2\u00a0 But then it continued to shake.
For a month.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re taking a bath, trying to relax, and all of a sudden
you’re bobbing like a small yacht in the ocean.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s frightening.<\/p>\n
But only if you experience it.\u00c2\u00a0 Those outside of California couldn’t
understand it, couldn’t comprehend.\u00c2\u00a0 They knew what shaking was, they just couldn’t grasp the worry over continued existence, the knowledge that the infrastructure you depend on, grocery stores, electricity, TV, they could be gone in a minute.\u00c2\u00a0 You could be living in a modern wasteland.<\/p>\n
So I comprehend what’s going on in New Orleans.<\/p>\n
But not really.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m like those people who didn’t live through the Northridge
quake.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re not there, you just can’t get it.<\/p>\n
Be thankful.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s awful.<\/p>\n
I’m at a loss in understanding what’s going on.<\/p>\n
How did this happen to begin with?\u00c2\u00a0 Was someone derelict?<\/p>\n
Then again, that’s history.<\/p>\n
But this WASN’T supposed to happen.\u00c2\u00a0 Isn’t that what the media said?\u00c2\u00a0 That
the city was safe?\u00c2\u00a0 And then, out of harm’s way, like Nate Fisher, the city died.<\/p>\n
Point of refuge was the Superdome.\u00c2\u00a0 The gleaming icon of our national sport.\u00c2\u00a0
Now filled with people without running water, or flushing toilets.<\/p>\n
But these people were the lucky ones.\u00c2\u00a0 Then there were the dead.<\/p>\n
We can understand planes flying into buildings more than this.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve got
someone to be angry with, someone to vent our emotions upon.<\/p>\n
But we’re gonna rail at human nature?<\/p>\n
I’ve never been to New Orleans.\u00c2\u00a0 Spoken with Don Fox once, but I’ve got no
connection to the city.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d rather believe it all didn’t happen.<\/p>\n
Maybe that’s human nature.\u00c2\u00a0 We need to put everything in a box.\u00c2\u00a0 In order to
make sense of it.\u00c2\u00a0 So we can move on.<\/p>\n
I’m sitting in sunny Southern California, where it hasn’t rained for months.\u00c2\u00a0
I want to believe all is well with the world.<\/p>\n
But it’s not.<\/p>\n
I’d like to be able to fix the problem.<\/p>\n
But, I can’t.\u00c2\u00a0 So like human beings from time immemorial, I will carry on.\u00c2\u00a0
We all will.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s what we do.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t stop.<\/p>\n
But you can’t forget.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We’re conditioned for nothing to go wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re warned.\u00c2\u00a0 TV stops regular programming.\u00c2\u00a0 Tells us to look out. And then nothing happens. We feel so safe.\u00c2\u00a0 We drive automobiles with multiple airbags.\u00c2\u00a0 We wear helmets riding our bikes.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re protected.\u00c2\u00a0 It can’t happen to us. And then it does.\u00c2\u00a0 It fucks with something primal.\u00c2\u00a0 Something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-135","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}