Eliza Doolittle sang, and I wonder: How many words does it take to describe evil?
It appears a mentally disturbed person legally bought a weapon, murdering and injuring many people: a federal judge, a child, an US Congresswoman, and five other souls. We don’t know how he could do this, or why. This has not stopped speculations – and common decency doesn’t seem much of a restraint with so many open mikes.
The talking heads inundate viewers and listeners with so many words unconnected to facts – and all are caught up in a swirl of unmediated grief, shame and horror. Do those who operate the news think the more they talk the more they can keep the evil at bay?
Could all these news “stars” just shut up – maybe enforce silence, broken only by solemn music? Maybe they could give us time to think about the fact that what is normal in Mexico and Iraq and Afghanistan just visited the USA, destroying the lives of several people on a sunny morning in a suburban shopping center in Arizona?
After the bloody rampage in Tucson Americans can’t make any sense out of the evil, although we have more than fifty hours of commentary on cable and network news. The folks I usually listen to are as inane as the ones I avoid: all are reporting gossip, repeating baseless opinions and asking embarrassingly intrusive questions to people still processing the horror of what they saw or heard, or tried to help.
“Gotcha”sound bites repeated ad nauseam do not equip us to stand against evil – much less stand together. ( Isaiah 57:1)
No comments:
Post a Comment