I should be getting some real work done, but I’m finding it hard to stop thinking about what’s happening in my favorite city right now, and trying to follow developments through the news media.Unfortunately, media coverage is at best spotty. To some extent that’s understandable; after all, there are very few “on the scene” reporters, and information on key issues like progress towards plugging the gaps in the levee system is hard to come by. Still, Atrios has a very good point about the inability or disinclination of the media to provide basic explanations of the horrific images they keep showing:

It’s a shame that from what I’ve seen in the media they don’t seem to understand the importance of maps. Disaster footage is flashed randomly on the screen, devoid of any genuine geographic context. Maps appropriately scaled for the location of the footage would provide actual useful information. Otherwise, it’s mostly just disaster porn.

If you know a little bit about the geography of New Orelans and its many wonderful neighborhoods, these random images are maddening, since a flooded house in Bywater pretty much looks like a flooded house in the Irish Channel. Most viewers probably don’t care, and in the end, it doesn’t matter what I know when, but some effort to match images with words if not maps would be helpful. Even nightmares need scripts.