The callousness, or rather, the cheerfulness with which the American news media reported the tsunami in the days after it hit stuns me. Tens of thousands, an incomprehensible number of people, were killed outright, and millions of people will be affected.

“Our top story tonight, a tsunami from a massive earthquake devastates the coasts of

many nations in Southeast Asia, killing thousands. Also, shoppers snap up bargains at after-christmas sales.”

Now, I realize,since the tsunami was a sudden and powerful event that there was not much video to show, and any video taken was probably washed up in the tsunami itself, along with the cameraman. Since there’s no video, CNN and other networks can’t spend a lot of time covering it, because those formats rely on vido to carry their commentary. Thus Americans can’t imagine it. The damn thing rocked the world, literally moved islands, but this society we live in, which was so moved by September 11th, talks about the tsunami like it was a bad case of pneumonia. And we can’t help it. But it drives me up the wall that this momentous event, this world-shaking event, takes a back seat to consumer greed.

I wonder about friends I have lost touch with. I worry about Adeline’s fmaily. Were they in Penang? Was Penang hit hard? I thought Suyadi was from Aceh. Is he? Was his family there? What about Alfred on his Indonesian island? Was he hurt? I thought first of Carmen and Anton. But Singapore was out of the way of it. I hope everybody’s OK…