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I spent $35 on gas today - about $5 more than what it cost to fill my tank two weeks ago - and while on one hand it's frustrating and expensive, on the other hand it's just $35 and I don't have to encounter the National Guard to get it.

Jesus, watching the news and reading the newspaper and online reports is really just upsetting. Upsetting to realize that while these kind of situations can bring out the best in people, they can also bring out the worst. The worst in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of places.

There's a big debate online right now about two Associated Press captions. From Boing Boing:

Flickr user dustin3000 uploads two similar news photos that show flood victims in New Orleans wading in chest-deep water. In each, a person appears to be dragging a bag or box or two of food or beverages.

The images were shot by different photographers, and captioned by different photo wire services. The Associated Press caption accompanying the image with a black person says he's just finished "looting" a grocery store. The AFP/Getty Images caption describes lighter skinned people "finding" bread and soda from a grocery store. No stores are open to sell these goods.

Perhaps there's more factual substantiation behind each copywriter's choice of words than we know. But to some, the difference in tone suggests racial bias, implicit or otherwise.

Salon magazine tried to dissect the issue:

The AP database includes two other images from the same scene by photographer Dave Martin that refer to looters in the captions, though neither actually shows an explicit act of looting. Jack Stokes, AP's director of media relations, confirmed today that Martin says he witnessed the people in his images looting a grocery store. "He saw the person go into the shop and take the goods," Stokes said, "and that's why he wrote 'looting' in the caption."

Santiago Lyon, AP's director of photography, told Salon that all captions are vetted by editors and are the result of a dialogue between editor and photographer. Lyon said AP's policy is that each photographer can describe only what he or she actually sees. He added, "When we see people go into businesses and come out with goods, we call it 'looting.'" On the other hand, he said, "When we just see them carrying things down the road, we call it 'carrying items.'"

Regarding the AFP/Getty "finding" photo by Graythen, Getty spokeswoman Bridget Russel said, "This is obviously a big tragedy down there, so we're being careful with how we credit these photos." Russel said that Graythen had discussed the image in question with his editor and that if Graythen didn't witness the two people in the image in the act of looting, then he couldn't say they were looting.

But if he didn't witness an act of looting, how did Graythen determine where the items came from, or if they were "found"? "I wish I could tell you," Russel said. "I haven't been able to talk to Chris."

"The only thing I can tell you is they don't assume one way or another," she added.

Not a very satisfactory, clear answer, but then again, it's not a very clear question and right now one of the things I find unsettling is the way television media has glommed onto the most sensatationalistic aspects of this story - but why should that, why does that surprise me? This only works to frighten us, to make us, well, anxious. Not that it's not news - of course it is. And some reporters, such as CNN's Anderson Cooper, are doing an admirable job in covering it. Other TV personalities - I can't call them reporters or anchors or whatever - such as Cooper's colleague Nancy Grace are not.

Specifically she's doing an awful job, stirring up fear and hate by zeroing in on the juiciest of details and airing the most inflammatory of images in a constant loop of nausea-inducing footage.

And because Nancy Grace is obsessed - obsessed - with the missing-teen-in-Aruba case of Natalee Holloway, she actually split her coverage tonight between the two stories.

Because Hurricane Katrina may have devastated an entire region of the country and caused one of the biggest episodes of civil unrest in modern history, but there's still one girl from Alabama that needs to be exploited - oops, I mean, accounted for - right now.
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Like I was saying, $35 for gas. But no National Guard and and my family and friends and pets are safe and my home is dry and I can sleep at night, even if it is a fitful, anxious sleep.