Alex TP 9

Yesterday I met up with Mubarak at his place at Grand Marc. When we met earlier in the week I had asked him if it’d be okay to give him some light reading and perhaps some writing exercises over the break to both fill my quota and keep him from watching Movies/Television and playing video games all day/night. He said it’d be okay so I told him I’d text him a cool article to read once I saw one. I texted him Thursday morning one entitled “121212 Is a Joke” that I read on Twitter from The Atlantic. The article spoke about how a relief concert called 121212 for the victims of Hurricane Sandy and how the cause is disproportionate to places of human suffering around the world.

When we met up Thursday night and I asked him about it he said he liked it and agreed (he’s usually gives up pretty short answers). Consequently I pressed him about it and to give me details. He explained how “the other disasters sounded pretty bad” leading me to believe he either hadn’t heard of some, like the earthquake in Haiti or tsunami in Southeast Asia, or just didn’t understand how serious they were. The story points out how a lot of the damage to the tri-state area comes from it being a very wealthy area to start. I asked if he could compare that with Haiti or any other third world country. Here he seemed to link it together, how one place where there’s extreme poverty could be absolutely devastated by a natural disaster whereas an affluent area may just be shaken up.