[Bella]

Jek and I hardly watch TV anymore; we own too many books, and when we do want mindless stimulation we watch DVDs or play around on the Internet. However, we do like to be kept in the loop, and so occasionally flip on CNN or some other news channel to see what's going on in the world.

The first image we saw was of a mother and child floating face-down in the water. The camera panned around and focused on the dead, both in the water and washed up on shore. Jek quickly changed the channel to MSNBC where we saw similar images. FOX was, of course, no better. Jek was furious - I mean furious - stomping about the house and screaming about how the media was "whoring out" the tsumani victims just so we, the consumer, could be entertained. I had no idea what to say to her.

In my opinion, news stations like for their viewers to be shocked, and what better way to shock than show images like these? At the same time, I couldn't recall seeing any footage of dead people during 9/11 (though my memory may deceive me) - so maybe there's a double standard? I also don't think that there would have been this huge rush to the aid of the victims if there weren't horrific pictures of the aftermath.

I don't know what the point of this post was (I had an idea when I started). Do we need to have graphic depictions of real-life tragedy in order to be moved to any greater emotion? Is this disrespectful to the people who have experienced such a tragedy? Does anyone else really care?