"But it only sounds awful because it is not what anybody is supposed to say. I would venture to say that only a small minority of Australians who do not have family or close friends affected by the floods feels any emotion stronger than if they could not find an empty seat on the train home last night." Brian.

To the contrary Brian, my heart has ached for all the children from day one. Prayers said for their siblings and parents each night as I heard about each of the precious hearts not given the opportunity to live as long as we have.

Brian, you may be quite surprised at the heavy hearts present in many young people 14-early 20's age categories, or any age, that comprehend and deeply sympathise with the losses that families are experiencing now.

Similarly, the horror felt, when a young child such as Zhara Baker was taken from this life too early. People, particularly parents and siblings, genuinely feel for other people losing their children, having lost family members and children in their own families themselves.

Surely you have mixed with enough people throughout your life to realise this?

I think this article shows OLO has a valuable position in our online media, primarily because it allows a non mainstream view to be expressed. After merely two days of over hyped-intense TV saturation of the QLD floods, I'd had enough and just kept the TV off.

It was not only our American TV stations of channels 7, 9 and 10 but serial offender was the ABC. Officially sanctioned with the job of natural disaster govt. resource, it has become something of a disaster junkie.

In the process, no other news in the world was happening whatsoever.

The comparison between Qld and Pakistan floods was interesting, if invalid. The Pakistani govt lambasted the world for not being generous enough, yet who would trust a govt which can afford to build nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them, yet can't find helicopters to deliver aid to flood (and previously, earthquake) victims? Where was the mass mobilisation of volunteers, ready to help strangers, in Pakistan? There's the rub. Australia is a great nation with a healthy psyche, Pakistan is an Islamic basket-case, more interested in killing "blasphemers" than having a functioning disaster relief setup (indeed, many might say, it would be great a start if Pakistan had a functioning government).

You have a point there Brian, hair shirts and floggings have been ordered for all Queenslanders, to be carried out immediately.

Er, but we can't find some of them, is that a problem?

Oops, sorry, didn't mean to interrupt your tea and biscuit in front of the tele.

Brian does have a point. Although some readers clearly consider his words to be too brutal for their tastes, he is, in fact, merely highlighting the extent to which current political and social discourse, (and the media representations that fuel it), lack any criteria for rational evaluation. Our appetite for gazing into the private grief of others is validated by a culture of emotionalism that tells us we are sharing in their pain and thereby participating in their therapeutic relief. We feel good about ourselves when we publicly display how deeply we feel the distress of others - particularly those who, in some way, we identify with. In the wake of a 'disaster', politicians quickly exploit the saturated media coverage to prove the depth of their humanity to the electorate. News media turn all these elements into an entertainment format.

We haven't focused a great deal on the over 600 people killed in floods and landslides in the poverty stricken areas of Rio de Janeiro state because the Queensland floods are 'our' disaster. Similarly, most of us have no idea what is going on in Tunisia or the Ivory Coast and we can't spare enough additional emotional commitment to care. Brian is right to point out that we are a rich country and that Queensland will recover quickly from this event. All he is really saying is that we might benefit from a little rational reflection and let's keep such events in their proper perspective.

V, "..most of us have no idea what is going on in Tunisia or the Ivory Coast and we can't spare enough additional emotional commitment to care."

You speak for yourself and some sections of the self-loathing Left, not for Australians when you make wrong judgemental statements like that about them. It is a stupid mistake to judge Australians by your own behaviour or by what some journalists might do on a particular occasion, even if they are doing their best and failing in your eyes.

You are wrong to assume the emotion of politicians like Anna Bligh is an artifice or wrongly directed. Obviously they care about their fellow human beings and have been affected by what they have seen and are concious that decisions they are having to make for instance affecting the location of resources, are life and death.

You are wrong to judge Australians as uncaring and the aid to other countries and their welcome to very high per capita immigration over decades are testaments to that.

You begrudge Australians the benefits of the civil, caring, democratic society they strived to create and continue to fight to protect. Instead, you should be directing your judgement and gall at the leaders of poverty-stricken countries for their corruption and political and religious systems that do not provide for their people.

Above all, the care Australians are expressing for the welfare of their fellow countrymen is natural and good. It is ridiculous to say that they should somehow reduce their concern for Queenslanders who have lost their assets and loved ones because there are disasters elsewhere in the world, apportioning their sympathy according to the Left's ideals of what is 'equitable' and what is not.

BTW, Bob Brown, leader of the Greens, is the only political leader who has tried to make political mileage out of the floods. Bob Brown and the Greens will be be remembered for that.