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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Major bomb attacks
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the giant cheeseburger
Shipmate
# 10942
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Posted
55 dead in bombings.
No statements from world leaders as Barack Obama, Julia Gillard, David Cameron etc as yet.
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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?
Posts: 4834 | From: Adelaide, South Australia. | Registered: Jan 2006
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Yes, I noticed the small headline underneath a much, much larger headline for a bombing in another country.
And several hundred injured.
I can understand the USA being rather focused on its own circumstances right now, but it does rather beg the question why the rest of the world's media (and consequently, the leadership of those other countries) should be so incredibly focused on the Boston event and ignore what's happening in places like Kirkuk.
Which is pretty damn serious. If the northern part of Iraq is destabilised - the part that succeeded in emerging from the war in relatively good shape - it doesn't bode well for the security of the region.
You end up wondering why Boston is considered so much more 'important'. Likely reasons include regarding Americans as 'people like us' and Iraqis as 'them' - the fact that the Americans are in a situation you can place yourself in, and also that it's a place you can see yourself in (heck, I'll be there in a couple of months).
Or maybe it's just easy access to video.
I worry about the Iraqi attacks because of their implications. While I'm saddened by Boston, I find it hard to worry about Boston at the moment because it's far from clear what the implications are.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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The Midge
Shipmate
# 2398
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Posted
Very clever OP. I thought it was a duplicate of the Boston bomb thread.
Point well and truly made. ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
Posts: 1085 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
Being charitable, the wider ramifications of the Boston bombings are likely to be greater. Whether it's another attack on a foreign country or another clamp down on civil liberties, the echoes will be felt throughout the western world.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
the echoes will be felt throughout the western world.
Which is the only part of the world which counts.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
I hesitate to add this, but perhaps there is also something about expectation? A bomb in one place is less to be expected than in another, and therefore more newsworthy?
M.
Posts: 2303 | From: Lurking in Surrey | Registered: Sep 2002
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
the echoes will be felt throughout the western world.
Which is the only part of the world which counts.
Did anyone say that? It's simply understandable that western media will cover that which is most likely to have a direct impact on their viewers and readers. Much as a local paper will cover a theft that happens locally in more detail than a murder that happens on the other side of the country.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Being charitable, the wider ramifications of the Boston bombings are likely to be greater. Whether it's another attack on a foreign country or another clamp down on civil liberties, the echoes will be felt throughout the western world.
That depends entirely on who planted the bombs, and why.
If it's an individual person with a specific domestic grievance, I don't see why Boston would have any ramifications outside the USA whatsoever.
EDIT: And full credit to the authorities for not jumping to any conclusions on the topic.
[ 16. April 2013, 07:21: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
I hesitate to add this, but perhaps there is also something about expectation? A bomb in one place is less to be expected than in another, and therefore more newsworthy?
M.
Yes, that is true. More immediately newsworthy anyway.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Or maybe it's just easy access to video.
Plus reports will be in English.
(I believe lack of access to translators is a major problem in journalism.)
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
I hesitate to add this, but perhaps there is also something about expectation? A bomb in one place is less to be expected than in another, and therefore more newsworthy?
M.
I think this is part of it. And, while do not entirely discount the point TGC was attempting to make, I think saturation is also part of the problem.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I can understand the USA being rather focused on its own circumstances right now, but it does rather beg the question why the rest of the world's media (and consequently, the leadership of those other countries) should be so incredibly focused on the Boston event and ignore what's happening in places like Kirkuk.
Could it be that we, as people, are naturally drawn to people and places that are familiar to us? I've never been to Boston or Kirkuk, but I imagine that downtown Boston is more like central London or Melbourne than the souk in Kirkuk.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It's only natural that disasters are viewed fairly narcissistically. My twisted ankle is a tragedy; ten dead in Kirkuk is a blip.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
the echoes will be felt throughout the western world.
Which is the only part of the world which counts.
To the people living there, yes. If it affects us, it's more imnportant to know about it. If it has no effect on us, then it's just prurient curiosity.
The main reason why Boston is more important though is that Iraq is a warzone, bombs go off all the time. It makes little difference to the situation for some more to go off, tragic though it is for the individuals concerned.
The Boston bombs were unexpected, unprecedented, unique. And unique is always more important than common.
We don't need to handwring over our western-centric viewpoint to find reasons why this doesn't bring as much attention.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
The main reason why Boston is more important though is that Iraq is a warzone, bombs go off all the time. It makes little difference to the situation for some more to go off, tragic though it is for the individuals concerned.
No. This is simply not true. In the last decade the situation in Iraq has fluctuated wildly, with periods that have been much calmer.
The situation has also been very different depending on which PART of Iraq is being talked about.
But half the time we don't actually get that kind of detail. Everyone just hears "bombs in Iraq" and yawns.
We don't even hear as much from there as we do from Afghanistan. Oh right, our troops are gone. Everybody can stop caring about the place now.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Anglican_Brat
Shipmate
# 12349
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Posted
I read Judith Butler's book "Precarious Life" this week. In her essay on violence and mourning, she writes of how political mourning is. Our act of mourning is an act of recognition, we recognize that those who we mourn are like us, we humanize them. Conversely, those we don't mourn for, we dehumanize, we deem them unworthy of our compassion and empathy. Mourning is a political act.
One of my friends is a triathlete. It is understandable that she might feel a deeper degree of identification than I do, she after all, was training to go to that marathon a few months ago. It's not that we shouldn't mourn for Boston, it's that why we do not seem to do the same for those in Iraq or Afghanistan. The news media, whenever it covers a bombing in these countries, always portrays it stoically "There has been a bombing in Iraq, 20 killed." There is little attempt to tell the stories of the little boy who lost his father in Iraq or the woman who has been permanently amputated. Yet I fully expect in the next month, that witnesses and victims' relatives of the Boston bombing will pop up on the Morning talk shows as vacuous American journalists ramble on "How did it feel during those moments?" No one asks those in Iraq or Afghanistan "How does it feel?"
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It's Reformation Day! Do your part to promote Christian unity and brotherly love and hug a schismatic.
Posts: 4332 | From: Vancouver | Registered: Feb 2007
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Hairy Biker
Shipmate
# 12086
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
The main reason why Boston is more important though is that Iraq is a warzone, bombs go off all the time. It makes little difference to the situation for some more to go off, tragic though it is for the individuals concerned.
No. This is simply not true. In the last decade the situation in Iraq has fluctuated wildly, with periods that have been much calmer.
The situation has also been very different depending on which PART of Iraq is being talked about.
But half the time we don't actually get that kind of detail. Everyone just hears "bombs in Iraq" and yawns.
We don't even hear as much from there as we do from Afghanistan. Oh right, our troops are gone. Everybody can stop caring about the place now.
From the BBC report (which is hidden down in the world news under "middle east", and not on any front pages):
quote:
Although violence has decreased in Iraq since the peak of the insurgency in 2006 and 2007, bombings are still common.
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there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
We don't even hear as much from there as we do from Afghanistan. Oh right, our troops are gone. Everybody can stop caring about the place now.
Sure, why not. If our troops aren't there then events in the country don't affect us any more.
Is this a heartless approach? The world is a big place, how can you know and personally care about all the suffering, death, devastation and innumerable tragedy that occurs daily, hourly, every second of the day?
How many countries do you personally care about? Have you picked one or two that caught your attention and you regularly follow the narrative? When was the last time you checked the daily death toll in Burma, the world's longest running civil war (12,000 civilians dead last year). The Columbian internal conflict? South Sudan (80 people killed in tribal conflict on 8 April - 50,000 fleeing to Chad). Northern Mali, Nigeria? There are killings and mass violence daily in many countries. See this list for some of the current ongoing conflicts happening right now. Do you know or care about all the people currently being killed in that list? I suspect no one in the world does.
Why do some conflicts hold our attention and not others? It can't be because some deaths affect our life and other's don't could it? Or perhaps some deaths are just a more interesting story than others?
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
There is little attempt to tell the stories of the little boy who lost his father in Iraq or the woman who has been permanently amputated. Yet I fully expect in the next month, that witnesses and victims' relatives of the Boston bombing will pop up on the Morning talk shows as vacuous American journalists ramble on "How did it feel during those moments?" No one asks those in Iraq or Afghanistan "How does it feel?"
And if we take time out to read stories about deaths and violence in countries far away, happening to people we don't know, the events having no effect on our life - isn't this just rubbernecking, morbid curiosity for it's own sake? How is this a better, healthier, or more humane aproach? Why do we need those people who suffered, either in Iraq or Boston, to feed our curiosity about 'how it felt'? It's both none of our business, and nothing we can understand unless we were there. Is this just morbid fascination with the suffering of strangers? Is this bad taste, in Boston, as well as in Iraq?
* My comments aren't specifically directed towards Anglican Brat or Orfeo by the way. These are just random thoughts I had when considering the above comments by them (and others). I think we are all guilty of morbid curiosity, and all guilty of claiming to care about all people, no matter where they live. Of course we don't. We can't. We have to pick and choose who we care about. And what are the factors that we base our decisions on?
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Hawk, I've already pointed out that I *do* think it still affects us. If Iraq slides back into instability it isn't good.
As for all the other places you trotted out... yeah, I know plenty about South Sudan, thanks, having spent years in a church full of Southern Sudanese (heck, they had a flag before they had a country). I've been following events in Northern Mali in the news. I know the history of north-south conflict in Nigeria.
You're not, amazingly, the only person in the world who manages to keep some kind of awareness of what's going on in these places. The point is there should be MORE of us, not less. We don't actually live in a little Western bubble even if we'd like to think we do. What's happening in other parts of the world does affect us. One of the major fears in northern Mali, for example, was that it could provide a new home base for radical Islam that could lead to terrorist attacks.
Even where it's not something as obvious as that, there are major implications for trade and investment depending on the stability of countries.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
we deem them unworthy of our compassion and empathy. Mourning is a political act.
I disagree. This is overly simplistic and cynical.
It is, in part, a coping mechanism.
Take the recent mass shootings in the US. Massive reaction, yet many more people die there each year from single-death shootings. The reaction to those is much more muted. Why? Common occurrence and a sense that it cannot easily be changed. So it is tuned out.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
we deem them unworthy of our compassion and empathy. Mourning is a political act.
I disagree. This is overly simplistic and cynical.
It is, in part, a coping mechanism.
Take the recent mass shootings in the US. Massive reaction, yet many more people die there each year from single-death shootings. The reaction to those is much more muted. Why? Common occurrence and a sense that it cannot easily be changed. So it is tuned out.
Yep - as with road traffic accidents. We can't mourn every death which is reported, it would overwhelm us - we are simply not equipped to deal with such grief.
This is linked to this thread I think. We would be no use to anyone if we were constantly affected by grief for the terrible things which happen round the world.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
I doubt if knowing about the 55 dead in Iraq will lesson the sorrow of the mother whose two little boys lost their legs in the Boston bombing yesterday. Neither will information about the thousands who die in traffic accidents or the people who suffer long painful deaths from cancer.
What she knows is that her little boys are going to wake up in post-op in a few hours and she'll have to try to explain to them why their legs are gone. Then a few months later she'll have to watch them cry in rehab and then there will be the tears over not being able to play some sport they love and later still the teenage moment when the girls they like tell them they only see them as good friends. And because this is America there will be years of worry over medical costs.
The Giant Cheeseburger is trying to shame us for caring about the people in Boston and it isn't helping. Neither is it helping to hear politicians use this moment as a national pride day, talking about how "Americans come together at a time like this," as though other peoples don't or to hear mayors praise the great city of Boston as though it's Red Sox game or to hear fist pumping, angry vows of how "This person will be brought to justice!"
Why can't we just pray for these people and their doctors and families, the first responders and the police investigators without making comparisons or vowing vengeance?
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
You're not, amazingly, the only person in the world who manages to keep some kind of awareness of what's going on in these places. The point is there should be MORE of us, not less. We don't actually live in a little Western bubble even if we'd like to think we do.
It's a different kind of awareness, though. I'm not likely to be walking down the streets of Kirkuk, Mosul or Baghdad any time soon, so an uptick in local disorder doesn't affect me. It affects me only in a large-scale geopolitical sense, which (see another recent thread) the news medias is pretty bad at dealing with. When your media only does knee-jerking, there's not much to say about bombs in Iraq.
On the other hand, my neighbour was at the Boston marathon, and I have friends and relatives in other cities with upcoming marathons - the immediate kneejerk response to the Boston bombs is of some relevance to me.
It's not that an Iraqi is of less value than an American, and it's not that I care more about the fate of an American stranger than an Iraqi stranger - neither of those is true.
Part of the story is lilBuddha's routine vs non-routine occurrences: 20 children being killed in one place is national news; 20 children killed in car accidents that same week might rate a paragraph in the local press.
Part of the story is that a bombing in Boston could presumably have happened in any US city, so there's a certain sense of "that could be me" that doesn't apply to the same bombing in Iraq. It's not just "well, Iraq is unstable" - I think you'd get the same non-reaction to a bomb in Jeddah (which would be as unusual as one in Boston). Saudi Arabia is different enough culturally and socially from the US that there isn't the same feeling of "it could be me".
I don't think it's just a Muslim/Arab thing: how much press / reaction do terrorist acts by Basque separatists get in the US?
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Her little boys are going to wake up in post-op in a few hours and she'll have to try to explain to them why their legs are gone. Then a few months later she'll have to watch them cry in rehab and then there will be the tears over not being able to play some sport they love and later still the teenage moment when the girls they like tell them they only see them as good friends.
I don't mean to sound cold, but this is not the only possible scenario.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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The Midge
Shipmate
# 2398
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
How many countries do you personally care about? Have you picked one or two that caught your attention and you regularly follow the narrative? When was the last time you checked the daily death toll in Burma, the world's longest running civil war (12,000 civilians dead last year). The Columbian internal conflict? South Sudan (80 people killed in tribal conflict on 8 April - 50,000 fleeing to Chad). Northern Mali, Nigeria? There are killings and mass violence daily in many countries. See this list for some of the current ongoing conflicts happening right now. Do you know or care about all the people currently being killed in that list? I suspect no one in the world does.
If you ask me then I say I know a bit about Nepal because I happen to involved with filling out forms for a new charity to support local people running an orphanage in a forgotten back water. (Nepal is the new sex tourism hot spot since Thailand clamped down on it BTW. Child trafficking is rife ). Meanwhile the Nepali government can't agree a constitution; not even to save themselves ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
I don't know about all the ones cited above because my main sources of news obsess over a few casualties in the USA, and their budget crisis, presidential elections etc etc.
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Some days you are the fly.
On other days you are the windscreen.
Posts: 1085 | Registered: Feb 2002
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
I hesitate to add this, but perhaps there is also something about expectation? A bomb in one place is less to be expected than in another, and therefore more newsworthy?
M.
This is true. I live in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, for three years in the late 80s/early 90s. Sometimes England knew more about our bombings than we did! It was hardly noticed here.
You expect bombings in the middle east. you don't expect them in Boston!
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Her little boys are going to wake up in post-op in a few hours and she'll have to try to explain to them why their legs are gone. Then a few months later she'll have to watch them cry in rehab and then there will be the tears over not being able to play some sport they love and later still the teenage moment when the girls they like tell them they only see them as good friends.
I don't mean to sound cold, but this is not the only possible scenario.
Well of course not. I never claimed to be a psychic. I was just throwing out a few examples of the sort of grief this family may possibly be facing in the future as an indication of why things like civic spirit in Boston just might not compensate.
If you want to paint a rosy picture of all the fun they're going to have, feel free.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
You're not, amazingly, the only person in the world who manages to keep some kind of awareness of what's going on in these places. The point is there should be MORE of us, not less. We don't actually live in a little Western bubble even if we'd like to think we do.
It's a different kind of awareness, though. I'm not likely to be walking down the streets of Kirkuk, Mosul or Baghdad any time soon, so an uptick in local disorder doesn't affect me. It affects me only in a large-scale geopolitical sense, which (see another recent thread) the news medias is pretty bad at dealing with. When your media only does knee-jerking, there's not much to say about bombs in Iraq.
Yes to everything you said, but especially yes to this bit.
I already expressed my frustration on the 'Is news bad for you' thread at the media's extreme focus on 'knee-jerking', and really this is just a specific example of it.
I'm not, for a second, saying that the bombing in Boston isn't newsworthy. What I *am* saying is that it is not worth hours and hours of blanket coverage that really says nothing at all, to the exclusion of other news stories.
It's actually pretty embarrassing to watch the folk in the studio ask correspondents on the ground an elaborate form of 'do you know any more than we do?' and to get back an elaborate form of the reply, 'no'. Along with an endless supply of eyewitnesses and earwitnesses.
The actual reporting part takes a few minutes at most.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Og: Thread Killer
Ship's token CN Mennonite
# 3200
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Posted
Darn right its selfish.
For the hundreds of millions of people who live in the US, and the few hundred other million of us who live in Western countries, the reason why coverage of Boston was ubiquitous was because we could imagine ourselves there, or in a place like that.
The suffering of that event has reference points that allow us to feel.
E.g.
I'm going to two of the 5 large professional sporting events this weekend in this city.
Like it or not, the bombing in Kirkuk, and the earthquake in Iran, do not have those reference points for me. I try to remember to say a prayer when I hear of such things. But I can not relate to them. And to ask me to do so is to deny me one of the few barriers I have to compassion overload.
This reminds me of my time as a community worker. I listened to people for 8 hours a day. After about a week on the job, I had to stop listening to other problems outside of my job. Otherwise, I would have burnt out really quick.
*******
On another note, in my kid's school today, a lively Facebook discussion occurred involving Iraqi and Iranian kids and others about this exact same issue. This is healthy for them all to think through.
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I wish I was seeking justice loving mercy and walking humbly but... "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st."
Posts: 5025 | From: Toronto | Registered: Aug 2002
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
How many countries do you personally care about? Have you picked one or two that caught your attention and you regularly follow the narrative? When was the last time you checked the daily death toll in Burma, the world's longest running civil war (12,000 civilians dead last year). The Columbian internal conflict? South Sudan (80 people killed in tribal conflict on 8 April - 50,000 fleeing to Chad). Northern Mali, Nigeria?
Yes I have some knowledge of all the places you mention, both through the mainstream media and also through the more responsible and professional Christian advocacy organisations.
I know a number of Burmese Christian refugees, and have taught some of them English.
It really isn't that hard to keep in touch with what is happening in what prime minister Chamberlain once called "far-off countries" containing "people of whom we know nothing".
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It's not just compassion overload, but a necessary filtering. If you wanted, every day you could do a tour of hospices to comfort the dying. And I am sure there are people who do that. But I don't blame people who would find that hard going, and therefore don't do it. Similarly, I think it is OK to watch light-hearted stuff on TV, and not just stories about terrible events. A friend of mine complained about such things, so I said, don't watch it.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
I hesitate to add this, but perhaps there is also something about expectation? A bomb in one place is less to be expected than in another, and therefore more newsworthy?
M.
This is true. I live in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, for three years in the late 80s/early 90s. Sometimes England knew more about our bombings than we did! It was hardly noticed here.
You expect bombings in the middle east. you don't expect them in Boston!
Well, I'm not sure 'England' took very much notice of the usual stuff that happened in Northern Ireland. I remember the outrage over the poor horse that died in Hyde Park as a result of an IRA bomb; while our soldiers and police and civilians were regularly being picked off and blown apart without much more than a 'same old same old in Ulster' kind of approach from some of the media. When I moved to England, it was salutary to learn that many English people didn't even seem aware that Northern Ireland was part of the UK anyway.
Bombings in places renowned for violence? Hard to make 'news' of that. Rightly or wrongly. Even the terrorist past-time of bombing wedding parties and school buses etc - surely the softest of all targets imaginable - has become 'normal' in the world press.
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Hawk, I've already pointed out that I *do* think it still affects us. If Iraq slides back into instability it isn't good.
As for all the other places you trotted out... yeah, I know plenty about South Sudan, thanks, having spent years in a church full of Southern Sudanese (heck, they had a flag before they had a country). I've been following events in Northern Mali in the news. I know the history of north-south conflict in Nigeria.
You're not, amazingly, the only person in the world who manages to keep some kind of awareness of what's going on in these places. The point is there should be MORE of us, not less.
Apologies if I came across as sounding superior for knowing about other places. My point was actually the exact opposite of that!! I don’t know or care about places that I do not have a personal link to, or that don’t pique my curiosity, and my point was that this is normal for everyone. That list of places was intended to show that even if you know and care about two or three of those conflicts, there are many more that you’d either never heard of, or didn’t know details about. My point is that this is normal. The places we know about and care about what happens in are because of our own personal links, or because we’ve found the history of the conflict interesting enough to read about. You care about South Sudan only because of your personal links with that South-Sudanese church. Your interest in Iraq is only because you think it affects you.
I think this is normal behaviour. Our interest in world events is purely selfish, based either on whether we think it affects us, or whether it interests us as a narrative to follow. And the level of attention and emotional investment we put into things is on a sliding scale, giving more attention to places we have a stronger link to. We know the names and details of people in our family and immediate circle of friends who have suffered death or disease. But we only know the number of victims of the Boston tragedy, and little more detail about them, and we know vague facts and statistics about deaths in Iraq or South Sudan. Then we are merely aware of conflict in a general sense in other warzones, not noticing each individual battle, or incident of violence.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
The link in the OP keeps giving me errors. So I'm just going by what's been said on the thread.
Gee, we're bad for being upset about a bombing in our country? What callous cads we are.
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif) ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Of course, there are horrible things going on in other places. Bad things are BAD, no matter where they happen. If the peeps in charge made pronouncements about each one, they'd be doing that 24/7/365 (and an extra day for leap year). And then people would probably complain that we're displaying faux compassion by talking about so many incidents, and how self-important we are.
I'm concerned when I hear any bad news. I try to remember to do a quick prayer/blessing. But I have to ration how much really bad news I watch. It's too much pain, and it stresses me out. I can only read the prayer thread every few days, 'cause there's too much pain there.
So I think many of the comments upthread are shove-worthy.
As to news about Basque separatists: there was a TON of it when I was growing up. Then, as I understand it, ETA calmed down for a while because the situation calmed down a bit. But there are a lot of newer, younger members who don't even given the traditional "get out while you can" warning call. Personally, I think that the French and Spanish Basquelands should at least be an autonomous region, if not a country.
We regularly have news about horrible things all over the world. Forgive us for being extra concerned when the horrible things are in our own household.
Gaaaaaa!
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Oh, and my local NPR station has PRI's "The World", on weekdays. I listen to it daily. It's designed to help Americans understand more about the wider world. And it's good.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
So I think many of the comments upthread are shove-worthy.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
ISTM that a significant part of what gets coverage has to do with rather mundane aspects of the news biz. In Boston, there was lots of film footage of the explosion, which is like milk to a cat for TV coverage. Also, there were lots of bored reporters already standing around a very innocuous event, the Boston Marathon, looking for something to hyperventilate about. The notion that this would not be covered 24/7 strikes me as rather naive.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
Perhaps bad news in Iraq is ignored because Americans prefer to believe that our involvement in that country was a success and everyone over there loves us now.
Perhaps it's also that we just get sick and tired of hearing about Muslims fighting Muslims. It seems to be what they do. There doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. We get burned for even trying.
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
Perhaps it's also that we just get sick and tired of hearing about Muslims fighting Muslims.
It can't be that because not all the victims of the recent bombings in Kirkuk are Muslims.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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redderfreak
Shipmate
# 15191
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Posted
In the UK, we've got rather hardened to news of bomb attacks overseas, because we hear of them so often. But it's always sad when people kill each other.
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You know I just couldn't make it by myself, I'm a little too blind to see
Posts: 287 | From: Exeter | Registered: Sep 2009
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