Missing the point

Interesting to read the dispatches in the US regarding a natural disaster going un-noticed:

Utility crews renewed work in subfreezing temperatures Saturday in their effort to put the power back on for nearly a million customers left in the dark by an ice storm that crippled parts of several states this week.

....

Local officials grew angrier at what they said was a lack of help from the state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In Kentucky's Grayson County, about 80 miles southwest of Louisville, Emergency Management Director Randell Smith said the 25 National Guardsmen who have responded have no chain saws to clear fallen trees. He said roads are littered with fallen trees and people shivering in bone-chilling cold are in need.

"We've got people out in some areas we haven't even visited yet," Smith said. "We don't even know that they're alive."

Smith said FEMA was still a no-show days after the storm.

As this is winter in the northern hemisphere, everyone should have known this was coming. Just as "hurricane season" denotes the possibility of hurricanes, winter denotes the possibility of snow, ice, and cold temperatures.

One element which is missing from this current natural disaster is the now curiously quiet chorus of US media types normally ready to pounce on every shivering shiverer in order to make political points. The New York Times editorial page, silent; Maureen Dowd, silent; Paul Krugman, silent; Bob Herbert, silent.

If only they showed the same Katrina-esque zeal during this particular natural disaster......

Then again, with a new and more amenable ruling class in Washington, pointing out the silence of the New York Times on the failure of government now rather misses the point of the whole exercise.

All hail the new laconicism.