Feeling Closer to Japan

Parts of Japan are thirteen feet closer to the United States as a result of the earthquake, but it feels even closer. The images put you there. You can hear the crying, smell the fetid air, feel the damp and heavy sorrow and yet you remain paralyzed and useless in front of a screen. It's the cruel irony of the modern world. Constant contact begets human detachment.

The more friends and followers you have in the cyberworld the lonelier you get. Real friends and family get snubbed for an artificial universe of people you hardly know.

And yet technology has the power to bring immediately to the forefront what's important. The bizarre, scurrilous and petty world of politics is momentarily muted in the face of a natural disaster that has broken families and washed away communities. Parents have lost children. Children have lost their past and much of their future. Heartbroken people are virtually naked, cold and alone.

At least not yet the earthquake and horrific human and natural disaster hasn't been analyzed through the simplistic prism of left versus right. Like so many things, the rescue and aid to the people of Japan is not a Democratic or Republican issue.