NEWS: Vacation to Hell

CULTURE: Vacation to Hell

The death toll after the Asian tsunami sits between 117,000 and 150,000 people. People are wondering how so many animals that escaped harm, if our celebrities are safe, and who gets the credit for giving aid.

Yet, people are still going to the region for vacation.

People don’t think you’re just “mad”—we think you’re an asshole. It’s a bit like taking your honeymoon in Sarajevo, camping in Darfur, or holding your family reunion in Calcutta.
[Hat tip: Drudge]

That just makes me sick. How can someone decide to have a vacation while so many people are suffering and in mourning for family members and friends.

I just dont like how France is bragging all over the news
"We're the biggest donator"

THIS ISNT A COMPETITION!

I was sad when I heard the first day 6,000 were dead... but 117,000 +!!!

Im going to go to Mass tomorrow and pray for everyone over there I have decided.

Anyone know of a Catholic Church in Manhattan?

(after reading the article i added

Dude... how could someone think like that! I hope they dia of Ghonorea (however you spell it) and burn in hell.


[Edited on Dec 31, 2004 12:30AM]

Most of the time in a major tragedy like this the best comes out in people but there are always those assholes who just dont get what it means to be human or think about others. Its sad.

Think of it as contributing to the effort by stimulating the local economy. Especially the under-age sex workers.

Well, the surviving hotels do still have a business to run...

Exactly. By trying to appear "sensitive", people who cancel vacations are actually depriving the area of dollars that it's really, really going to need.

Exactly what I said.

Only less vulgar.

they could have stayed at the hotel and maybe spent their time volunteering to help in some capacity.. i'm sure they're in need of volunteers to help with supplies or whatever.

instead, they're chilling on the beach in the aftermath of one of the biggest tragedies of our lifetime.

I agree, the ENTIRE economy of some of those locations depend on the tourist industry. The thing that has helped us survive as a race for so long is the fact that we don't just give up in bad situations or in this case HORRIBLE situations. Alot of people are complaining about the releif money and how much was sent by who etc. If you want to help, find stores online or near where you live that sell exports from these areas and buy the goods from them. Or better yet if you can afford it go and visit!

For those saying that it's helping the economy, I really have my doubts. Who is really going to get the money here? The owners of the hotels? I don't think the majority of hotel owners are local business[wo]men. More likely, they are owned by large chains that will make money from insurance anyway. And what about the resources that are being diverted from helping dying people to feed a wealthy tourist?

Really, tourists dollars are best spent as donations to aid.

Wasn't there a huge ad campaign designed to bring tourists to New York in the weeks after 9/11?

Adding unemployment to the mix isn't going to help the survivors or the rebuilding process.

EXACTLY!!!!!

Do you have any idea how many local jobs a single large hotel provides? This isn't about hotel insurance. It's about keeping open the businesses that employ the local people. Yes, it's sad when an economy relies primarily on tourism. We all prefer seeing people producing for themselves instead of working for unappreciative hordes, but when those hordes bring money to throw around who are you to tell them to stay home instead? I'd be ready to bet that nobody who's cancelled their vacation plans and made a donation to the red cross has donated anywhere near what they would have fed into the local economy had they followed through with their vacation plans.

I agree with whoever suggested that the best thing would-be vacationers can do is go anyway, but instead of going as tourists, go as volunteers to help in the cleanup effort.

i really liked the article you referenced about how so few, or any, non human animals died in the tsunami. esp. the joker that said we cant prove that non human animals have a sixth sense "in the laboratory". its sad to see that something as useful as the scientific method can be dogmatized so much that we would ignore common sense and thousands of years of wisdom because we cant "prove" it in that way. word to yo moma: if you are on the beach some where and all the animals start running away--follow them.

Life goes on.

My best friend's dad is dying of cancer, he's getting pretty close, like time measured in days rather than months or even weeks. He's laying in a room in my buddy's house drugged mostly out of his mind, and when I'm there his son and I are in the living room, playing game-cube games. I guess you could see that as insensitive or vulgar, just like the people who are still vacationing, but the truth is that life goes on.

People have lost their families, whole villages have been wiped out, but there are still people there who need to make a living, and tourists help that. If they're cool people, they might spend their vacations helping when they can, but even if they don't, that doesn't make them bad people.

And that "sixth sense" is probably a combination of the other 5 picking up the many details that accompany such disasters. We probably could notice these things too, if we paid any attention or if our lives frequently depended on our ability to hear/see/feel as much as possible.

[Edited on Dec 30, 2004 11:46PM]

Entire economy? WHAT ENTIRE ECONOMY?! It got washed away! and most of the people that were employed in the tourist industry are busy searching for relatives, burying relatives, trying to find food and water, etc etc. I think the last thing those countries need is a bunch of insensitive richpig foreign assholes hanging around taking pictures.

I pay my bills on tourist dollars at a hotel here in Santa Barbara. Not quite the paralell I'm sure everyone is looking for, but I thought I'd share that.

Personally, I think that it is completely self-centered to think that immediately after a tragedy (especially of this magnitude) anybody is going to be willing to serve you food and clean up your bathrooms at a hotel. I have a hard time helping people before 10am. I think I'd be borderline shooting rampage if someone came around expecting me to "help" them after what has happened.

it's not a sixth sense really, i think some scientists allready proved that dogs can hear the sounds of tectonic plates under the earth grinding which gives them some warning about impending disaster.

animals are just way more sensitive to subtle signs, it's like rats abandoning a sinking ship, seems supernatural but it's not, it's just a animal that knows when to run like hell.

My comment earlier was open-ended, and maybe it shouldn't have been.

Hotels provide jobs, true. But they also ruin livelihoods for many natives that before just lived off the land. A bunch of big hotels are built and they are forced to work 8-hour days and earn a currency. What most of us may see as an "opportunity" for them likely does not feel like an opportunity. As in most places where the boss is someone from a first-world country, the person that cleans your toilet is a native, and is underpaid and overworked. This is with or without a tsunami killing many thousands of people.

That people would go to the areas where people have died just days before to be served by those that have likely lost family members, wives, husbands, etc. is pretty fucking shameful.

In short, the hotels would love for it to be "business as usual", because the owners likely didn't lose any lives. They're houses likely weren't washed away. If anything, they'd be upset that they have to find new servicepeople now because some died the other day. And hiring new people is always expensive.

I went there last year for a month or so and had some friends who just returned thank whoever running this fucked up universe. Anyway, I can't imagine being on holiday with such death all around. Of course there are those that sit inside or stay in there small towns and never leave and there is a whole fucking world out there that could use a hand. It is a terrible situation no doubt. I just just think people should stop complaining about what others are doing and take a look in the mirror. Happy New Year.

Exactly. I remember my stepfather dying of cancer and he insisted we all laugh and joke around, keeping in good spirits. His family took offense to us playing games while he was in the other room, so much so that they SUED my mother for his entire estate because she was so insensitive over his death.

But we just had to find a way to get over the grief.

BUT. These tourists are fucks: