http://www.mahmudrahman.com/society/hurricanes-and-regime-change/ mahmud's weblog Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:03:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://www.mahmudrahman.com/society/hurricanes-and-regime-change/comment-page-1/#comment-14 Anjali Mon, 10 Oct 2005 19:13:00 +0000 http://www.mahmudrahman.com/?p=5#comment-14 I somehow think it helps to name these disasters. It doesn't have the same impact to say, "the hurricane of 1970"; that makes it one in the list of many hurricanes, and it sets in a kind of fatalistic feeling-- they keep coming, they are all hurricanes, this is just one of many, and so on. But when you say "Katrina" you are talking of a specific, individual occurrence and it somehow puts a limit to that event. It allows you to hope that there will be an end to the misery because Katrina will not come again. False hope, sure, but for the people living the horror, even this false sense of security mght mean something. I somehow think it helps to name these disasters. It doesn’t have the same impact to say, “the hurricane of 1970″; that makes it one in the list of many hurricanes, and it sets in a kind of fatalistic feeling– they keep coming, they are all hurricanes, this is just one of many, and so on. But when you say “Katrina” you are talking of a specific, individual occurrence and it somehow puts a limit to that event. It allows you to hope that there will be an end to the misery because Katrina will not come again. False hope, sure, but for the people living the horror, even this false sense of security mght mean something.

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