The first thing you think of when you see bombings like the terrible one in Boston is: Jesus!
I suppose it might be considered good taste to leave it at that and I'm certainly tempted to do so. But having seen so much bloodshed here, bloodshed that probably would not have taken place had the ISI not supported the religious crazies in the first place, and had America not waged this ridiculous 'war on terror', I have to mention my second thoughts...
Really, it's media whores I can't stand. The need to put every image out there, to relentlessly pry into other people's privacy, to bring you "live coverage" of every moving detail of an "event". The situation is fluid, they say, mimicking army gibberish. And all in the name of freedom! Of course, many recognize it for what it is: cheap sensationalism because that is, ultimately, what holds our attention in an age saturated by images and full to the brim with pomposity and verbal hyperinflation. Gawk dumbfounded at the "situation" as it unfolds, quietly sip your latte.
Gawk, awkward, ga, ga-ga.
"As always in America, what actually happened today near Boston braided entirely into what was being shown and said, so that the two became inseparable...We are now a nation of experts, with millions of people who know the meaning of everything that they haven’t actually experienced...And it was an American story, too, in what could only be called a hysterical and insular overreaction that allowed it to become the sole national narrative."
---Adam Gopnik, sensible as ever.
Smith, it seems, saw wars as "expensive and unnecessary". Yes, but what that misses out on is the psychological impact it has. The Pakistani army in 'East Pakistan', or Israel in Gaza or the Indians in Kashmir: the brutality is first and foremost against other people-and that is where our sympathies must lie; but the perpetrators themselves sink in their own brutality as well.
I suppose it might be considered good taste to leave it at that and I'm certainly tempted to do so. But having seen so much bloodshed here, bloodshed that probably would not have taken place had the ISI not supported the religious crazies in the first place, and had America not waged this ridiculous 'war on terror', I have to mention my second thoughts...
Really, it's media whores I can't stand. The need to put every image out there, to relentlessly pry into other people's privacy, to bring you "live coverage" of every moving detail of an "event". The situation is fluid, they say, mimicking army gibberish. And all in the name of freedom! Of course, many recognize it for what it is: cheap sensationalism because that is, ultimately, what holds our attention in an age saturated by images and full to the brim with pomposity and verbal hyperinflation. Gawk dumbfounded at the "situation" as it unfolds, quietly sip your latte.
Gawk, awkward, ga, ga-ga.
"As always in America, what actually happened today near Boston braided entirely into what was being shown and said, so that the two became inseparable...We are now a nation of experts, with millions of people who know the meaning of everything that they haven’t actually experienced...And it was an American story, too, in what could only be called a hysterical and insular overreaction that allowed it to become the sole national narrative."
---Adam Gopnik, sensible as ever.
Smith, it seems, saw wars as "expensive and unnecessary". Yes, but what that misses out on is the psychological impact it has. The Pakistani army in 'East Pakistan', or Israel in Gaza or the Indians in Kashmir: the brutality is first and foremost against other people-and that is where our sympathies must lie; but the perpetrators themselves sink in their own brutality as well.
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