Reply #6: hailing from the space coast of florida, i grew up with news

[nashville_brook]

of space shots. some missions ended in disaster and the world freaked out. 3 astronauts dead. 7 astronauts dead. etc. i could never muster much saddness, tho. i could not understand -- a handful of astronauts. people who willingly enclose themselves in a metal tube and explode themselves into space...and then to FALL back down. they were heros when they began their journey. upon their death? still heros. they deserve every bit of recognition the world can give them when tragedy strikes -- but it's still just a few people who were passionate about a seriously dangerous job. what a way to go. but those are BIG headlines. big explosions. lost in space. etc.

the idiot box in our living rooms dramatically messes with our senses. it shows us what it wants us to see and lets us know how we are to think about it. when we are supposed to cry and when we are to turn our backs and not care.

right now, we aren't supposed to care about iraqis and american soldiers who are being fried with depleted uranium and it's wafting over us every four days. that's too complex. too insidious. you can't get any good footage of cancer. we aren't supposed to care about iraqi families wiped out in urban warfare -- b/c they are "insurgents." the tv tells us so. the ones who die -- they are the bad ones. you can tell b/c they are dead, i suppose.

for people who care about a decent, sane world to live in -- these are challenging times. where do you grab on to for solidity? what the hell is left that isn't spun to oblivion like so much cotton candy? the fundies carry on about "moral relativism." if this were a xtian country there would still be moral relativism -- just theirs. everything is relative by definition. as soon as someone -- anyone -- puts their mind to a question, it becomes relative. so our hearts go out to the londoners today. but that mean that we abandon our larger mission -- to put the brakes on the policies that break hearts with and without headlines.