Today brought us news of over 10,000 deaths in South Asia wrought by Mother Nature, a toll that would not surprise if it doubles again. More press will be given tomorrow in the sports pages for Reggie White, God rest his soul, who died this morning at 43 of an apparent heart attack.
I just read an interesting editorial page article from the local paper; a 3 year old child was shot and killed last week, the latest in a systemic wave of murders by gunshot in Palm Beach County. The Palm Beach Post had run an unusual front page photo of the child wrapped in plastic being carried from the crime scene by a coronor's office official and there was quite an outcry that the picture did not belong on the front page.
The newspaper's ombudsman makes a strong case in support of the editorial decision, which was carefully considered.
http://tinyurl.com/48rpy
Meanwhile, on another website (http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/), one can learn the latest casualty figures for Americans, currently at 1324 dead and over 10,000 wounded.
I must applaud the Palm Beach Post for not toeing the popular opinion line, as it is my opinion that mainstream media in this country continue to shirk their responsibilities in presenting reality to the American public and in so doing, actually help prolong the Iraq conflict by camouflaging the daily personal toll inflicted on our soldiers and their families. If we had an independent, traditional media left in this country and had they been doing their job, Mr. Bush would not have prevailed as he has. Those on the right might argue that similar restraint was shown during actions promoted by Democratic administrations, but the sheer numbers are becoming Vietnam-like and the public has to be confronted with this reality. To enable the American public to remain ostrich-like while the rest of the world's population becomes better informed puts us in an untenable situation that can only endanger us further.
No doubt tomorrow there will be photos on the front pages of some newspapers in the US of floating corpses or bodies stacked in a Sri Lanka morgue. Personally I'd be more comfortable with a few shots of dead American soldiers resulting from the mess hall bombing, for troubling as they would be to look at, we need to look at them and ask the hard questions. Mother Nature, we're limited with her. George Bush, we're not.