distractions

There are some serious things going on in the world these days - state of emergency in Pakistan, flooding in Mexico, the war in Iraq, numerous droughts, diseases, wars etc destroying Africa, child slavery, poverty, famine.... The list could on forever.

Interestingly enough, this is the story I heard over and over today. Supermodel news seems to be the most important thing to talk about today. Of course, this is only until britneylindsayparis does something newsworthy. That should be in a minute or two. Last week, it was that Dumbledore is gay and that Marie Osmond collapsed during Dancing With the Stars.

Is it any wonder why the world is in the state it is in?

SunnyShine
_____________

RainyBow note: What's a Pakistan?

The big media conglomerates are partially to blame for this. It's a perpetual circle: when the media don't cover the important stories, then nobody knows anything about them, and then people don't want to hear about those important stories because they don't know anything about them and they feel stupid. Dumbledore and Marie Osmond are safe, easy stories and people will buy them, so why publish anything else?

The public is also partially to blame for this. We're so caught up in our bubble of celebrity-obsessed, cushy culture that we don't want anything to threaten our reality. Wars, starvation, and natural disasters are wreaking havoc on people who aren't that different from us? Maybe if we ignore all of this it will just go away.

Journalist Howard W. French has written extensively on West and Central Africa and writes of many people who risked their life to tell him their stories, in the hopes that a Western journalist writing in western papers would raise awareness of the region's issues and agitate for change. But does anyone actually read French's work? I'm skeptical.