Priorities

Stories you may have heard about recently:

Conservatives attack Bush over Harriet Meirs
Heavy rains continue in Northeast
Job loss due to Hurrican Katrina tops 438,000
Wolf Pack defeats Idaho Vandals 62-14
Angela Merkel to be new German chancellor
Consumer Price Index surges in September - real wages fall
Dog killed in Reno mobile home fire
Violence escalaes in Iraq ahead of constitutional referendum
Bush stages interview with troops
Japan's upper house approves postal reform measures
Apple announces video iPod
Daniel Craig to be next 007
Bird flu outbreak in Turkey

Story you may not have read about (except that my know readership all knows Jose, and so probably has):

Genocide in Darfur

Why? In my case, it's because I don't really care. I wish I could wax long and eloquent about the atrocities being committed, but I am far too wrapped up in my love of sports, and my loathing of being single. Am I racist? To be honest, I was not too choked up about Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, the earthquake in Inda/Pakistan, the flodding in the Northeast, or many other disasters. I am sad in a very abstract way for those who are suffering, but I am not moved to act.

What makes Darfur different is that it is something that usually gets me: acts of evil perpetrated by one human being on another. Like the story of the pregnant woman who was knocked out with a baseball bat by her neighbor, who proceeded to drive to a remote area to try and cut the baby from her womb with a razor. Or the recently sentenced BTK killer. Or any other stories of atrocity. But in all of these I feel helpless against the flood. I am relieved when justice is done, but the accomplishing of it seems so big, so beyond me, that it feels fruitless to try.

It is a sad commentary on the news that partisan pointless bickering gathers so much news, while the rape, murder, and starvation of innocent children goes on without a second thought. But it is sad in part because the news is, for good or ill, a reflection of the stories deemed to be interesting to the people.

What can one do? I use Google News as my homepage. In it, you can customize what news you see by keywords, and sort where it is on your page. I could add a Darfur section to this page. I could look for stories about what is happening, and write to the papers thanking them for their coverage. It's just a thought.