This weekend, as Madison dwellers reveled in the tradition known as the Mifflin Street Block Party, a small town saw itself ravaged by a round of storms. The small town of Greensburg, where only 1,500 people reside, was almost wiped from the map as 95 percent of its structures were destroyed. In a time where people usually put aside their petty differences and come together, a spat of finger pointing has broken out, not only between the governor of Kansas and Washington, D.C., but in the public sphere as a whole.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has had herself cycled in sound bites as of late for her recent comments about the reduced readiness levels she felt the state's National Guard units have been subjected to due to their involvement of the Iraq war. Immediately propelled — artificially, I might add — into the everlasting debate of the war in Iraq, the Democratic governor's comments were raised as a flag in which antiwar activists might rally behind in proof of their cause. At the same time, the comments were touted by a number of conservatives on how a Democratic governor will stop at nothing to exploit tragedy for her anti-Iraq agenda.

The way I see it, everyone needs to chill out. Both sides are making something out of nothing here, when really the news should be more about rebuilding as well as rescue. Scanning the various progressive blogs, I see nothing but one or two lines (taken out of context) about the governor making general comments about the National Guard, followed by random people affirming this to be evidence that more lives would be saved if the troops were home in their own states to help.

To immediately jump to this conclusion is a bit inaccurate. The governor went on to explain rather explicitly that the state is in need of equipment, rather than actual bodies in the field. Granted, 800 to 900 troops of the state's 5,000 are deployed overseas, but the governor dismisses actual troop levels as the real issue. As for equipment, yes, there is an immediate lack of trucks, backhoes, etc., that the engineering units that were deployed overseas took with them. The governor, however, acknowledges that Bush has declared the town a disaster area, freeing up federal funds, and Gov. Sebelius actually praised him on the prompt response.

On the other end of the line, prowar pundits are not free from blame, either. Those who have cited the governor as using the tragedy to inflame the debate on the Iraq war are themselves guilty of exactly that. Reading the direct quotes from the governor, one would be hard pressed to excise a hint of a political agenda or war bias in any of them. Take the comments for what they are, a simple observation on an isolated issue. Has partisanship gotten so bad these days that one can manipulate almost anything into a political criticism? Is the war going so badly that you must defend your cause at every turn, even when the shots are imaginary? To be honest, there is blame that can be drawn back to the administration. The governor had requested exactly the same equipment now that she did back in December — proof that, even after the lessons supposedly learned from Katrina, federal disaster coordination is still mired in inefficiency and incompetence.

The only thing that can be said of this is that the whole situation is mildly amusing and also moderately disturbing. Have we as a nation become so divided that a national disaster cannot unite us? Where is the American spirit, and where is our oft-revered ability to unite and overcome? First Virginia Tech was fragmented into various political agendas, and now Greensburg may soon fall victim to the same fate. I don't know about you, but that genuinely scares me. Maybe it's my near constant cynicism that is blinding me to something, but when did the world get so cold? Was it always so, and have I only begun to realize it? The only hope I can muster is that this kind of behavior is not permanent, and one day there will be a time when my faith in humanity can be fully restored. Until that day comes, everyone needs to chill out.

Charles Lim ([email protected]) is a sophomore with no declared major.