I bet those "lost/purged" messages are on tape somewhere safe (Virginia is a usual disaster recovery spot).
Dermot O'Leary, swivelling on his heel like a man on castors, introduced "the story of last night", a blitzkrieg of clips from Saturday's show accompanied by the usual disaster movie music and lasers and anti-aircraft fire and surging Wagnerian choruses, ending with an ad break for Argos and Pizza Hut.
Even the small round loaf of bread with a knife sticking out of it (generally a bad sign) was a notch above the usual cottony disaster.
As I wrote in 2008, on such issues, "Are We Stuck With 'Blah, Blah, Blah, … Bang'?" I hope the answer is no, but I don't see us shifting meaningfully from business as usual on disaster mitigation without some serious analysis, education and prioritizing.
Business-as-usual means disaster.
In a departure from its usual response to disasters, the Red Cross in 2002 set aside about $90 million for continuing services that would last for several years after many other charities had closed their operations.
But magical thinking remains a problem for residents and politicians, as usual after a disaster, while memories of the quake are fading outside the region.
"We cannot simply pursue business as usual" after the disaster in Japan, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said at the end of a two-day summit meeting of E.U. heads of state and government in Brussels.
Included is art from Douglas Kinsey, whose usual theme is disaster, a defining topic on the Great Plains, represented by apocalyptic paintings, while Frank Bigbear Jr.'s drawing "Dolly's Discothèque" considers traditional Indian life assimilating into urban American culture.
