h3h.net

I was sickened when I learned of another magnitude 8.7 earthquake that occured off the coast of Indonesia. Obviously this is a great tragedy, but my sickness didn’t come about in response to nature’s actions, but rather in response to the people in this country if not the rest of the West.

I learned of the earthquake by pure chance as I was browsing the Google Blog. I asked ten friends if they had heard of this news and every single one responded with “no.” As if the deaths of thousands of people weren’t enough to tear us away for one moment from the death of a single man in the middle of Italy?

I submit to you now Exhibit A. This is a screenshot of Google News (which gets all of its stories from the most popular list around the world on all different online newspapers) from today, April 4, 2005, eight days after this natural disaster. I don’t think I have to remind anyone how much concern was expressed for the tragic deaths from the earthquake and the following tsunami at the end of last year. Now what do we see when a similar event occurs near the same time as the death of a single religious man? Nothing.

I am still in complete and utter disbelief that there is not one single article at the top of that page about this tragedy. Just for kicks, lets analyze that screenshot real quick. Some of the topics we see: the pope, an English wedding, oil, hard drives, Michael Jackson, oral sex, political resignation, Thai bombing, democracy with Ukraine, and the pope.

Thousands dead in a massive natural disaster: 0
Pope: 2

Who’s to blame? The mass media. The unbelievable blind commitment to a religious icon by billions.

Aghast. Amazed. Sickened. Saddened.