Read + Write + Report
Home | Start a blog | About Orble | FAQ | Sites | Writers | Advertise | My Orble | Login

Passionate Apathy - by Francis

Passionate Apathy - May 2007

Deja Vu All Over Again

May 2nd 2007 23:26
There actually was some news this morning beyond the demonstrators demanding that immigration laws shouldn't apply to people entering the country. Israel's government issued a report on the debacle war between Israel and Lebanon last year.

In short: The war was a bad idea, poorly planned out and failed to reach the unobtainable goals. This is a very generous understatement: While the Israeli army tried to bomb Hezbollah out of Lebanon, the result of the war was that Hezbollah came out more respected and stronger than they were a year ago.

This is often the case with unwise and poorly-planned wars. Just because you bomb the living shit out of a country doesn't guarantee that the "collateral damage" will blame the folks you meant to bomb.


At least Israel stopped short of completely destroying the Lebanese government and armed forces. History (you know, that thing our so-called "leaders" tend to fail to learn anything from) has shown that when you do that, then all kinds of unsavory elements can creep in.

Still, Israel did enough damage to make Hezbollah a major political power in Lebanon for years to come. Sometimes it's comforting to realize that our own country doesn't have a monopoly on ass-backwards leadership.
46
Vote
   


Manifest D'oh!

May 2nd 2007 00:18
After the tragedy at Virginia Tech, the news was full of (your punchline here!) Cho Seung-Hui's so-called "manifesto." We heard his words of alienation and anguish, and developed a much higher respect for all the grunge-rock garage-band wannabes who were much better poets. We saw him posing with his guns (and of course the inevitable arguments that gun laws and/or everyone packing heat could have prevented the massacre), and generally abusing his fifteen minutes of fame.

How many essays or poems of the victims were read on the news? The news channels were obsessed with Cho, not even considering that the far more mentally stable victims may have had even more worthwhile insights into life, the human condition and man's separation from his fellow man.


I don't doubt that Cho's rantings may even be valuable to students of abnormal psychology. I do doubt the "service" to the general public to repeatedly play up his pale rationalizations for mass murder. The fact that Cho wanted this crap to be broadcast should have been reason enough for cooler heads to keep it off the air... or at least to not give the psycho killer such over-the-top posthumous notoriety that he was gunning for.
47
Vote
   


More Posts
1 Posts
2 Posts
4 Posts
23 Posts dating from February 2007
Email Subscription
Receive e-mail notifications of new posts on this blog:

Francis's Blogs

I have no other blogs :(
Moderated by Francis
Copyright © 2006 2007 2008 On Topic Media PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved. Design by Vimu.com.
On Topic Media ZPages: Sydney |  Melbourne |  Brisbane |  London |  Birmingham |  Leeds     [ Advertise ] [ Contact Us ] [ Privacy Policy ]