According to CNN, an innocent American who’s been dead for two days is worth 225 times as much as an innocent Iraqi who’s been killed today.
How can I say such a thing? It’s empirical. Look at the following screen capture of CNN.com from tonight:
Let’s ignore for the moment just how morally and strategically idiotic it is to reward a killer by putting his stupid-ass macho death poses all over the news (I didn’t say economically idiotic; I bet cnn.com gets lots of advertising revenue by encouraging psychotic young men to murder tonight). No, let’s pretend for a moment that CNN’s coverage is really all about honoring those 33 slain Virginia Tech students, the innocents whose lives were unfairly snuffed out.
OK, then. How much honor are the Virginia Tech students due? How much are they worth?
It’s a simple calculation. On my screen (the image above was slightly shrunken to fit here), news regarding the Virginia Tech murders took up 60.5 square inches. That’s 1.8 square inches per American killed two days ago.
On the other hand — look for it — the killing of at least 170 innocent Iraqis in a series of bomb attacks today merited just 1.4 square inches. That’s 0.008 square inches per Iraqi killed not two days ago, but today.
1.8 divided by 0.008 equals 225. Each stale innocent American death earns 225 times more space than each fresh innocent Iraqi death. Space equals money for CNN. And so, according to CNN’s calculus, an innocent American who’s been dead for two days is worth 225 times as much as an innocent Iraqi who’s been killed today.
Does your own moral calculus match CNN’s?
nope it doesn’t match CNN’s at all
i was wondering about this today, nce to know someone else was too
News seems to be always about the dramatic, horrible and fresh. Since we’ve been hearing about death in Iraq (that includes our own troops) for 5 years now, it’s become blase, old and trite. This is what happens in American culture – the tube rules your thoughts: tells you what’s cool, what to buy, what’s important. People can’t think for themselves much anymore (witness the last 2 elections) – it’s all herd mentality now. Thus, the American dream turned into the sick nightmare it is today.
Tom you whining gloom’n'doom libshitz asshole will you please just shoot yourself!!
My American dream is fantastic. Just got the Harley out yesterday!!
His family must be thrilled with this insensitive treatment. I can tell you it is bad enough to see the name of a family member in the media without graphic representations of the hideous way they died. His family must have gone through so much getting him into a mental health treament facility only to have him released almost immediately. Every new mention of the event in new stories in the weeks to come will be a fresh pain for them, even the unavoidable genuine news stories. This is just too ghoulish and should have stayed in a police file somewhere, maybe leaked to the Inquirer after a discreet lenghth of time.
In a way I blame the Iraqi war for romanticizing militaristic behaviour. Now anyone who is not cool can become cool by wearing fatiques or with other military posing.
During Vietnam the wearing of military stuff was part of an anti-war costume, but now I see so many kids wearing camoflage, I know it’s admiration of killing and not a protest statement.
If your kids want to wear military stuff, do think twice about it.
“In a way I blame the Iraqi war for romanticizing militaristic behaviour. Now anyone who is not cool can become cool by wearing fatiques or with other military posing.”
That would be like me saying I blame Oprah for turning men into pussies to where no male student tried to stop him from shooting students. At least a Isreali professor gave his life to save his class….guess it was his mandatory military training that gave him the backbone needed, eh?
You’ll probably next blame your constipation on the Iraqi War instead of the Tofu Imi-burger you had for lunch….
So, if every student carried a gun…And there were 6 horny strong jocks…And there was 1 hot girl who forgot her tool of self-defense…If the jocks suddenly decide to take her away quietly and rape her, how will she escape? A bullet moves faster than a running girl. Yes, even if she is on the track team.
Plus, say there was a rich kid. People might decide to all gang up on him, take the cash and off him. But since everyone has a gun, who will know who killed the kid?
Interesting…The kkk also support giving everyone a gun.
Harrold; I don’t think Anonymous was trying to in any way undermine the people of the military.
I gather he or she meant that because the media keeps trying to highlight the wars (don’t forget Afghanistan) as something justified or not horrible, people are finding it more acceptable to try to get positive attention through negative acts.
Clearly if this kid had joined the army and shot some Iraqis this wouldn’t be a story. It’s because he’d brought the battleground “macho” (killing people) into an inappropriate environment, which rather mimics the media.
Anonymous doesn’t offer any explanation for why other people DON’T do school shootings despite the same media, but I think they were just reflecting on what a shame it is that a country’s negative actions could be reflecting on youth in a negative way.