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"Back in America, journalists were facing another kind of disaster."

"Floods

In the dark night, from sweet refreshing sleep
I wake to hear outside my window-pane
The uncurbed fury of the wild spring rain,
And weird winds lashing the defiant deep,
And roar of floods that gather strength, and leap
Down dizzy, wreck-strewn channels to the main.
I turn upon my pillow, and again
Compose myself for slumber.
   Let them sweep;
I once survived great floods, and do not fear,
Though ominous planets congregate, and seem
To foretell strange disasters
   From a dream--
Ah! dear God! such a dream!--I woke to hear,
Through the dense shadows lit by no star's gleam,
The rush of mighty waters on my ear.
Helpless, afraid, and all alone, I lay;
The floods had come upon me unaware.
I heard the crash of structures that were fair;
The bridges of fond hopes were swept away
By great salt waves of sorrow. In dismay
I saw by the red lightning's lurid glare
That on the rock-bound island of despair
I had been cast. Till the dim dawn of day
I heard my castles falling, and the roll
Of angry billows bearing to the sea
The broken timbers of my very soul.
Were all the pent-up waters from the whole
Stupendous solar ystem to break free,
There are no floods now that can frighten me."

--Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Passion (1883)

"There needs to be something alive on the other end of the line, a source of energy that comes from somewhere else, so that your job becomes to wrestle with this and draw it in and find out what exactly it is."

I learned from watching my father loyally following bonkers radio preachers over many years, that there are consumers of this sort of thing who don't listen to words as words. There's a lot of them. What they do is identify with a voice. It gives form to inarticulate grievances in a satisfying way. If you only pay attention to the words, you're missing most of what is happening here. And if you try to argue with them in words, it's like water off a duck's back. They have found a source when they feel rejected by everything around them, & unless they're welcomed by a source that is closer & more personal, they're not letting go of that voice. For them it's a lifeline.

"It’s hard to imagine any other situation in which a group of educated, liberal adults would conjure a marginalised group as a shorthand for awful."