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AGAINST INTERPRETATION
2004-12-30
Social Critic with Verve
One can only wonder what activist, essayist and novelist Susan Sontag might be writing about this week had leukemia not claimed her life on Tuesday. An observer and critic of popular culture, art and politics, Sontag fought her own battle with breast cancer and dispelled the notion of disease as metaphor for social and moral decay in "Illness as Metaphor." An excerpt from the obituary[registration] written by Margalit Fox for the New York Times was published by the Herald Tribune.
Regarding the Pain of Others
"We were more generous when we were less rich, many of the rich countries, and it is beyond me why are we so stingy, really." - Jan Egeland
"The United States is not stingy. We are the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world." - Colin Powell
What might Sontag have said about the brouhaha that followed comments by United Nations chief disaster relief coordinator, Norwegian Jan Egeland? The U.S. Secretary of State and the President said that he was misinformed and the U.S. was certainly not stingy. USAID administrator Andrew Natsios, was quick to point out, in a television interview, that the U.S. funds some of Mr. Egeland's office budget and that he was talking about development aid statistics, not disaster relief.
Nevertheless, the tourist videos of the Asian tidal wave and tsunami tagged images placed on flickr speak for themselves. Americans join with other world citizens in supporting relief efforts by donating to organizations that are helping the survivors, such as the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders.