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April 6, 2006 | It's a wide, wide world of sports out there - among other more despicable things. Twisted cultural behaviors, twisted ideals and residual harm from prior oppression from without and within. We sometimes get politically focused in our news junky world - for those actually paying attention - and neglect the base elements of personal horror that exists in numbers unimaginable to a population that affords itself luxuries, even those luxuries we cannot pay for. How long can horror be overlooked until it strengthens and begins to knock on doors closer to home? You'll find that one author has learned that Homeland Security calls this overlooked horror domestic terrorism - even when it occurrs in a foreign land. While we worry about madrassas far away recruiting young Muslims to take up arms against mother America and possibly fight such youth under our invasion of Iraq with our suspect coalition of the willing, millions of humans are abused and worked for a paltry wage or are sold into slavery, used and then many times discarded as unwanted debris. It always amazes me how the blogosphere under the liberal label tends to focus on such few sources for investigative journalism. Journalism that, while not directly addressing what mainstream media presents as the most immediate problems of the day, focuses on cause and effect. Journalism that is so artfully crafted that it is almost overlooked as a short story on the woes of millions who scrounge for daily sustenance across the globe. Out of hand, many will hear the words Mother Jones and recognize the publication name or the historical figure from which the publication derives its name - and then think (react actually from successful programming) LIBERAL. A smart person rises above such easily digestible labeling and wonders, "is this true", and ponders the effect upon the world within which we live. This writer felt ashamed upon the realization that I too had grown to neglect the finer aspects of journalism and had turned to snappier, daily bites of issue after issue to keep the news junk in my veins - moving from daily to hourly fix if allowing myself to do so. I shielded my eyes away from more thoughtful, in depth compositions that moved me away into a foreign land with foreign motives and subsequent horrors - lands time throws money at and tries desperately to forget as no army or navy can combat such human treachery. Scott Carrier has written a wonderfully composed article that takes us down the seedy streets of such lands of neglect. Carrier deftly paints for us the left over misery for those left behind or able to avoid outright extermination in Indochina. The colors of his palate are masterful, yet the paint reeks of another world. A world that seems more illusion than something real, a simple sore instead of an epidemic. The author and the article are classic Mother Jones. It is a moving examination of how a large percentage of the population of our egocentric world lives and how they are so easily disposable. It has no relation to what western media focuses on as Islamic radicalism - yet the symptoms may be somewhat similar in the deep pits of despair within which too many humans live in our world today. Prepare to be overwhelmed. In a Brothel Atop Street 63, by Scott Carrier, Mother Jones, April 2006 issue.
You might also just peruse their ever evolving web site at motherjones.com and place it in your daily favorites of electronic reading. And, of couse, buy the magazine. Enough good journalism has passed away - put a stop to such trends with support.
4.6.2006 |