sophistry | (no subject)

I wish I could say I was surprised at the current outrage that's taking my flist by storm - the neglect of American media to report the beating, murder, and concealment of the body of Aaron Hall; the intent of his murderers to claim 'gay panic defense' in court.

But I'm not. Here, have some news links about what goes on under the noses of US citizens every day, and what the Americans on my flist never quite seem to have seen reported in their local dailies when I bring it up. Only the first two I've found, because I appear to have poisoned myself with bacon at lunch, and should probably be horizontal.

At least 78 people have been killed and another 218 injured in a truck bomb attack near a Shia mosque in the centre of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. The bombing came as US forces began a major offensive against militants linked to al-Qaeda north of Baghdad. Around 10,000 troops are taking part in Operation Arrowhead Ripper in and around the city of Baquba in Diyala province, a centre of the Sunni Arab insurgency.

24 boys have been found starved and neglected at a government-run orphanage for special needs children in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Discovered last week by a US military advisory team that was out on patrol with Iraqi soldiers, the emaciated boys, some near death, were left naked and covered in their own excrement on concrete floors for more than a month in a staffed orphanage. The US soldiers found fully stacked kitchen shelves and new clothes in nearby rooms.

Surprised?

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Not so much on the first one, because I read about it in the paper this morning. The second one though, that...that's new.

Sometimes I wonder how effective a sick nurse is while working on an ICU ward.

Wow that totally reads as if I was the one working on an ICU Ward, which it's not supposed to. I'll just be over here learnin' some English.

Insert applause for Boston newspapers! I wonder whether the inclusion of things like the first link in newspapers is dependent on where you are - blue state versus red state, maybe? Or maybe it's just dependent on what other news there is that day. I remember talking to Josie about a much, much worse bombing - bugger me if I can remember when, but I think it was one of a barrage of marketplace bombings that all killed well upwards of 100 each - and she'd had absolutely no idea, because not one of them had made it into the news.

It's possible, though I'm pretty sure it had more to do with the fact that it was the Boston branch of an International news corporation.

See, I'm torn here. Because on the one hand I don't know that a country that can't equally protect its own citizens should be out attempting to bring "democracy" to the world.

But on the other sits that story about the orphanage.

Bah!

Having lived in Boston for a few years, I can say that the Boston news sources are pretty consistently better than most in the U.S. I still include the Globe's website in my morning and evening news sweeps.