Pondering Posted by John on May 04, 1999 at 12:01:36:
In Reply to: The personality catastrophe in Littleton. posted by John on April 30, 1999 at 10:44:52:
It's intriguing for me to ponder that with hundreds of houses and
buildings burned in wildfires in the southeast, and nearly two thousand
structures demolished in these tornados in Oklahoma and Kansas last
night, with much loss of life, that Mother Nature is visiting as much
death and destruction on our own shores as we are visiting upon the
targets our pilots are hitting in Yugoslavia and Kosovo.
But by and large, I suppose, the people of America are pretty much
desensitized to the tragedies that happen in other places, whether here
or on other shores, unless they actually happen in their own home town.
I think most of us can empathize, if it comes to our attention, with the
fear and anger and other emotions that ran rampant among people reacting
in Littleton and Denver during the hours while the stand-off in the
highschool was still going on, and in the days afterward. Many, many
people, just from living in the area of the tragedy, were plunged into a
living hell for a period of time. Whatever else they did during their
days, they went on being shocked, distressed, and suffering. The news
and proximity of what happened hung heavy in their space. Not only the
students in the highschool itself, thousands and millions of people
around have been suffering at the same time. And this is true for
others around the nation with television, like me—although, farther
away, our suffering is not so great. The impact of this one small yet
terrible "bomb" that went off inside that highschool, even has impact,
emotionally, on the bodies of people far, far away from the explosion.
Now, multiply that by all the 2000-pound bombs that have been falling
in, for instance, Belgrade, and you have some idea of what that may be
like, emotionally, for the people who are living there day to day. If
you multiply that by the number of Serbians participating in a long and
inhumane fear campaign (which is what "ethnic cleansing" is about) to
frighten Muslims out of Kosovo then you have some idea of what living
there has been like emotionally for Albanian men, women, and children
over the months and years. Too many of us have to live this way on this
planet.
Damn it! I think Humankind has got to learn to wake up and do better
with these kinds of things . . . . or else maybe Mother Nature will give
us what we seem, as a race, to be asking for in sleep.
Coach {Grrrrr.}
Archived 15 Jun 99