Humor is Tragedy plus Time (Mark Twain)
Two days ago I was driving towards the college I teach and as I was waiting patiently in my row, I saw some cars driving really fast over my left side, a track usually used by the bus and highly fined by the police. These weren't a few number of cars, it almost seemed like a massive exodus from a Stephen King movie. Were they running from something we, in the front, didn't know?
Of course not. These cars just didn't want to wait in line. Civility and sticking to rules seems an impossible behaviour from our fellow citizens. I think an act of respect comes from a compromise to do the right thing because it allows for people to live harmoniously. It also comes, I think, from dealing with the fact we're together in this mess, call it a traffic jam, the disappearance of students or a hurricane.
Some people like to think it was thanks to the prayers and good vibes that the hurricane dissolved so quickly (God help Us). I like to think otherwise. Now, tragedy strikes Mexicans every time and we seem to laugh at it so fast it's fulminating.
Though I lived in New Orleans, I never checked the memes while I was there, or at least I don't think so. If I remember correctly, Irene was supposed to hit NOLA around the same date Hurricane Katrina entered the city 6 years before. To many of us, the tropical storm it later developed, left a sense of relief and well, an unfulfilled prophecy of catastrophic proportions?
Meme generators have been out there for a while now, and although the word actually means "that which is imitated" (as a gene or a virus even). I think they're ideas or behaviours that do spread widely and faster than the real news of an event.
Huracán Ramírez is a Mexican fighter and as memes started appearing everywhere, it made me wonder what was going on before I knew what was actually happening in the state of Guadalajara.
Why is our tragedy infectiously / funny and when does the violation really become insulting towards change? How many times can we victimise ourselves or let others be victimised, either by the media, the government or oblivion; by diminishing the events or letting them become shadows of what they were supposed to catalyse? When is it that civilised really means caring for the other, becoming solidare beyond our confort, beyond our lifetime and for a collective good? I keep thinking in other countries, for less that what has happened to us, there would already be not one but several comissions, a constant outrage beyond our daily routines swallowing it up, cohesion in some sort of shape or form.
Me? I'm doing my own small battle from my interactive front by engaging with my personal commitment towards transparency and justice. My expectation is that only some sort of clarification can come out of it.
Of course not. These cars just didn't want to wait in line. Civility and sticking to rules seems an impossible behaviour from our fellow citizens. I think an act of respect comes from a compromise to do the right thing because it allows for people to live harmoniously. It also comes, I think, from dealing with the fact we're together in this mess, call it a traffic jam, the disappearance of students or a hurricane.
Some people like to think it was thanks to the prayers and good vibes that the hurricane dissolved so quickly (God help Us). I like to think otherwise. Now, tragedy strikes Mexicans every time and we seem to laugh at it so fast it's fulminating.
Though I lived in New Orleans, I never checked the memes while I was there, or at least I don't think so. If I remember correctly, Irene was supposed to hit NOLA around the same date Hurricane Katrina entered the city 6 years before. To many of us, the tropical storm it later developed, left a sense of relief and well, an unfulfilled prophecy of catastrophic proportions?
Meme generators have been out there for a while now, and although the word actually means "that which is imitated" (as a gene or a virus even). I think they're ideas or behaviours that do spread widely and faster than the real news of an event.
Huracán Ramírez is a Mexican fighter and as memes started appearing everywhere, it made me wonder what was going on before I knew what was actually happening in the state of Guadalajara.
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| [because he's wearing a frack, a hat and smoking a pipe] The Hurricane acquired a new category |
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| The Hurricane deviated (or became a deviant)!! from it's original path |
 |
| This is the Hurricane's position right now. |
Why is our tragedy infectiously / funny and when does the violation really become insulting towards change? How many times can we victimise ourselves or let others be victimised, either by the media, the government or oblivion; by diminishing the events or letting them become shadows of what they were supposed to catalyse? When is it that civilised really means caring for the other, becoming solidare beyond our confort, beyond our lifetime and for a collective good? I keep thinking in other countries, for less that what has happened to us, there would already be not one but several comissions, a constant outrage beyond our daily routines swallowing it up, cohesion in some sort of shape or form.
Me? I'm doing my own small battle from my interactive front by engaging with my personal commitment towards transparency and justice. My expectation is that only some sort of clarification can come out of it.
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