In a message dated 7/28/01 6:25:16 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< the 'torture' as it has been described was simply the boys chucking stones
at this poor child. >>
Wasn't the story a little more complex than that, Colin?
I thought the boys planned this murder, then went to a shopping mall looking
for a victim, befriended the little boy, coaxed him away from his mother,
took him to a remote area, and then carried out their planned homicide.
I didn't follow this story closely, but I do seem to remember a premeditated
aspect to it, which casts the murder in a different light than "simply the
boys chucking stones at this poor child." And I think anyone would consider
being stoned to death a form of torture, without the quotations. I am sure he
screamed for mercy, like any victim of torture.
My grasp of the facts in this case may be a bit fuzzy because I really try to
avoid stories like this. Once upon a time, twenty or thirty years ago, this
story would have remained in England, and the rest of us would have been
blissfully unaware of it. But these days the media are all on alert for the
next story they can sensationalize, the new scandal that can get their
ratings up. And next thing you know, the story is constantly in your face.
Anything to do with children and murder seems to sell very well, so we're fed
a constant diet of that. Sure it's a very sad thing that Jon-Benet Ramsey was
murdered in Colorado, but I don't want to hear any more about the case than
the facts. And then I want move on. But the media likes to draw everyone in
the world in to what would have once been a local story -- Did her mother do
it? Or was it her father? Did they kill her together? Or was it her older
brother? And what about those little-girl beauty pageants?
In the end, we all end up thinking the world is going to hell because just as
this story is growing stale, a fresh new horrific one pops up in Chipping
Camden or Trenton or Sidney or wherever. Then we all get drawn in again,
wring our hands, and wonder what's happening to our world, when the fact is
that something awful happened in a faraway place, and our world is basically
unchanged.
It's not that I am immune from being drawn in to media sensationalism. I was
glued to my TV for OJ's low-speed car chase and his trial. I was there for
Princess Diana's funeral and all the tributes and commentary that followed.
And you couldn't tear me away from the never-ending Clinton/Lewinsky story.
But when it comes to children and murder, or grisly Jeffrey Dahmer-type
stories, I'm sorry -- but I have to look away from the media frenzy.
I don't know whether or not this makes me a bad citizen of the global
village, but I think it's healthy.
--Bob
