Tsunamis and Death-Toll Pornography
Another impact that the modern media has, numbing our response to disaster:
"As the number of casualties following the tsunamis that struck south-east Asia and parts of east Africa reaches the 60,000 mark, I find myself falling prey to one of the most unpleasant side-effects of 24-hour television and web news coverage: an addiction to death-toll pornography. Like a junkie who finds himself locked inside of a drug store, with uninterrupted access to CNN, the BBC and the web I have an inexhaustible supply of material to feed my self-destructive habit."
"As the numbers continue to grow, however, my humanity and compassion seem to diminish. Initial horror upon hearing the news has morphed into an urge to hear more updates and to see more video footage of massive waves washing away cars, hotels, boats, and, in case we forget, people. As the numbers rocket upward, I play a macabre guessing game. How high will the death count go? 100,000? 200,000? Could it be a quarter of a million? The numbers are so huge, and my experience with death on this scale (or any scale, for that matter) so minuscule, that I simply cannot comprehend what is going on, Statistics are the only thing I can lean on."
Tsunamis and Death-Toll Pornography
"As the number of casualties following the tsunamis that struck south-east Asia and parts of east Africa reaches the 60,000 mark, I find myself falling prey to one of the most unpleasant side-effects of 24-hour television and web news coverage: an addiction to death-toll pornography. Like a junkie who finds himself locked inside of a drug store, with uninterrupted access to CNN, the BBC and the web I have an inexhaustible supply of material to feed my self-destructive habit."
"As the numbers continue to grow, however, my humanity and compassion seem to diminish. Initial horror upon hearing the news has morphed into an urge to hear more updates and to see more video footage of massive waves washing away cars, hotels, boats, and, in case we forget, people. As the numbers rocket upward, I play a macabre guessing game. How high will the death count go? 100,000? 200,000? Could it be a quarter of a million? The numbers are so huge, and my experience with death on this scale (or any scale, for that matter) so minuscule, that I simply cannot comprehend what is going on, Statistics are the only thing I can lean on."
Tsunamis and Death-Toll Pornography
posted by IMFletch at 9:20 AM
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