2005-07-08 - 2:12 p.m.
I'm thinking a lot about the bombings in London, (no need for a catchy "7-7" on this one, the "London bombings" will do just fine.)
Is it just because it happened in a western city? Or to western people? Why has the whole world come to a halt and focused it's attention on London?
How many hundreds of people have been killed by suicide bombings in Iraq? Do we not even pause for those events because they happen every day, or happen in some dusty Iraq street? Or is it because they happen to Iraqi people and not to people who look like us?
I don�t even think people in London are as worked up as we seem to be.
�Well it�s nothing new really, we�ve been through all this before in 73� with the IRA bombings�
�For Gods sake, we survived the blitz.!�
Both quotes I heard on the BBC last night.
This isn�t an anti us rant, as much as a �why do some deaths matter more than others� rant. I felt the same way when the Columbia broke up two years ago. That same week a helicopter carrying 13 US marines crashed in Afghanistan.
�A nation mourns�
�Tragedy over Texas�
The whole nation was consumed for days with coverage of the Shuttle disaster, and for months afterward with the investigation.
The Marines who were killed in Afghanistan weren�t even mentioned after the day it happened. Why are they less important? Or more to the point why was the shuttle crew so much more important?
I don�t think we should give as much coverage to the helicopter crash as the shuttle received, I think the shuttle crash should get as much as the helicopter. Preferably both would get a little more than a brief mention, neither should receive full coverage for days on end.
Just my thoughts.
Justus
