I'm grateful for: a slight drop in temperature; dogs on, under and around my bed; fun games on the internet that keep my brain working.

Try it, I expect you'll be surprized as I was at how bad your geography is. Actually, mine isn't so bad, I just keep getting some of the lesser known (to me) countries in the Pacific and in Africa confused. It's way depressing when I've guessed West Coast of Africa and the place is in Micronesia. ;-)

My house is full of people, we're preparing for the chag (Shavuot). Shavuot is in celebration of the (first) time Moses came down from the mountain with the tablets of the law. We read the book of Ruth and eat dairy and first fruits.

That's the shortest possible explanation - or maybe it could have been even shorter, but probably that's just as well.

We sent my sister a prayer request for a 2yo who was badly wounded when a rocket hit a mall in Ashkelon. My sister thanked us for sending the prayer request, apparently there was no news at all about the mall being hit. I'd been taking it easy on my media watch activities. So the fifteen injured people, including the dr. and nurse at the medical clinic that the 2yo and her mother were seeing at the time the rocket hit, just didn't happen for most of the world. Which, if you think about it, isn't that bad compared to the millions of people horribly injured and dead in Africa that never happened. How DOES the media decide which injuries and deaths are worth reporting, and which are insignificant?

It is a big question to me. It is NOT just about what sells papers. There are pirates operating off the coasts of Africa. A LOT of pirates. There is a ship taken often enough to keep the newspapers selling. These are genuine pirates with boarding, looting and walking the plank (no kidding). You cannot convince me that you couldn't write a news story about the pirates that wouldn't sell papers. Or rather, ad space. Yet, when was the last time you saw a front page headline about the pirates? I rest my case. So, I wonder. The people killed or taken prisoner by the pirates are insignificant lives, sometimes Sudanese deaths are significant, but sometimes they are not, but death in Somalia are almost always insignificant. Deaths in Iraq are significant only if they suit (or can be made to suit) the editorial bias of the paper, and that is true whether or not the dead are American.

I'd love to be able to travel a hundred years into the future, to be able to look back on this time with all that perspective and see what it looks like. It sure doesn't make sense from where I am sitting.

Anyway, with a full house, body not working at about average (for me) levels and the heat, heat, heat that's all I'm good for today.

I'm listening to Plan 9 From Las Vegas: Better Blue Sky

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06