r2i forum

RaReSha3;375887Starting a new thread on the wake of a tragedy of epic proportion in Japan. The sentiments/opinions are fresh for this recent mishap but comments need not not be limited to this alone.

How much should one grieve for other's losses? Is feeling bad for other's misfortune good enough or do you immediately spend some time organizing some help?

When you offer help and are working on relief efforts and coordinating the aid, the feelings that others(colleagues, family, friends) are not doing enough agonize you. How should one overcome contempt for others for not caring as much as you do?

On work ethics side,if a company has 75% of its revenues coming from a country, should the overseas employees be trained to be not insensitive to the main revenue generator's sentiments instead of doing a PR stunt of firing like below after the damage has been done?Business and personal world has become more global than ever, so how much is company's responsibility to train/control employee's public sentiments?
Fired over insensitive tweets

RaReSha3;375923 Relief was late due to the population demographics and even after 6 years, the Louisiana/Mississippi didn't recover to pre-2005 level and instead of pointing to the step motherly treatment for those victims, they bring the ugly incidents of the past to paint whole African American community in a negative way, I found that to be distasteful coming from commentators.

RaReSha3;375887...How much should one grieve for other's losses? Is feeling bad for other's misfortune good enough or do you immediately spend some time organizing some help? [/quote]
I guess it would depend on the tragedy and how much of a connection one feels with the country and its people.

[quote]When you offer help and are working on relief efforts and coordinating the aid, the feelings that others(colleagues, family, friends) are not doing enough agonize you. How should one overcome contempt for others for not caring as much as you do? [/quote]
Good question. Felt it during the Gujarat earthquake time and also at some other times (like motivating people to register for bone marrow registry). Used to bother at first, and lead to predictable discussions and exchanges like "what difference does it make overall... so small help is not of much use... most donation goes towards overheads... people donate for their own satisfaction...etc." Now, I like to believe that there exists a basic goodness and concern for others in most humans whose primary needs are met, and one has to hope it surfaces when they are moved enough to let it, and leave it at that.

I also agree that joking about the tragedy at this time is not a good idea.

RaReSha3;375923Also while commending Japan for maintaining order even under dire sequence of things, many of the US commentators (night show comedians) were commenting on how the looting took place on the wake of Katrina disaster in US. There is a lesson to be learnt from how Japan is handling this and to see how it will come out of it but what I fail to recognize is the need to bring sad history from the past because majority of the residents in New Orleans/Missisippi belt went out of their way to work on disaster relief to rebuild their community. Should a whole community be painted insensitive for few of hooligan's looting or stray incidents? Relief was late due to the population demographics and even after 6 years, the Louisiana/Mississippi didn't recover to pre-2005 level and instead of pointing to the step motherly treatment for those victims, they bring the ugly incidents of the past to paint whole African American community in a negative way, I found that to be distasteful coming from commentators.

I didn't watch the coverage being referred to above, but: the late night shows are the source of news for many Americans. And people who tune in to watch those also expect to be entertained and to laugh. When such events happen, these shows walk a tight line. The merest comment, slip or joke perceived to be in bad taste by some can go viral.

The absence of looting in Japan is significant in that looks like even the term itself does not exist in the Japanese language. And it is always only a few who loot, not the whole community. After reading about the uniformly queues at phone booths and people waiting in serpentine lines for water in Japan, the comparison to Katrina does not seem very out of place. Hopefully people watching the shows are intelligent enough to know that late night shows do not promise or have time for balanced coverage; and viewers need to look into other factors like the affluence of the people effected by the tragedy, be it Katrina or the Japan earthquake and tsunami.

Desi;375916
I think whether Gottfried or late night show hosts or the rapper 50cents, it is insensitive and poor judgement to engage in any joke re earthquake at this time.