I thought I’d write this week about nature. Maybe about birds, or about the compost pile we’ve started behind my home by digging up and chipping a pile of brush, beneath which we found tons of worms.
But she won’t stop haunting me, the 25-year-old lass, twinkling blue eyes, light-brown-sugar hair pouring in almost-ruly curls around her face, her young body scattered …
This could get R-rated in a hurry, though not because of the blood, and certainly not because of sex. Turn on HBO for the latest episode of “Game of Thrones” for what the Resident Critic calls “Blood, Brawn and …” I leave the third word for the reader to discern. But unlike “Game of Thrones,” Karlijn Keijzer will not be back next season.
She was a daughter, maybe a girlfriend, a compatriot of fellow students on a university rowing team. What she was not was merely one of 298 civilians murdered in a growing war in a region over which their Boeing 777 passenger jet just happened to fly.
Also not returning are three blue-eyed youngsters who climbed aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, towing their grandfather toward their next adventure. Ready for their new school year were 12-year-old Mo Maslin, his 10-year-old sister Evie, and eight-year-old brother Otis.
“We ask the media to respect the privacy of our family and friends – pain is not a story,” the parents were quoted July 23 in The Guardian. But the pain is the story. Or should be.
Writers learn in school to use action words, rather than offering a passive description, but I think I understand why news reports say, “among the dead,” rather than “among the murdered.” Regardless who pressed the button that launched the missile that blew MH-17 out of the sky over Ukraine, murdered is what they were.
Some of us senior citizens will remember the “Andy Griffith Show” episode in which Opie shot and killed a bird with his new slingshot. It was sort of an accident, considering the pre-teen Opie had been warned to be careful what he aimed at. His dad, the sheriff, made certain the youngster felt badly about leaving a nest of young birds parentless.
But there is no one to make the missile shooters feel badly about having, accidentally or deliberately, shot down and slaughtered 298 people who were not any part of the conflict being waged below them. Instead, we talk about Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin’s complicity in the technology and experts he has sent to the region in eastern Ukraine, conveniently glossing over the technology and experts we have sent to Iraq, and others we promise to leave in Afghanistan.
It’s convenient to blame the airline for flying over a combat area, but until July 17, it was a safe flight path. The aircraft was at 33,000 feet, well away from the small arms fire being exchanged between Ukrainian nationalists and separatists.
We decry the deaths Israel has inflicted on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, shooting at them like fish in a barrel, a trapped between Israel and the sea. The 50,000 troops Prime Minister Netanyahu called up are about one quarter of the population they are invading.
Kids swimming and playing on the beach, blown up so a couple of old guys can each try to prove he is bigger and stronger than the other. If a group of 20-something parents from each side sat down to discuss which of their kids they were willing to kill, would the war go on?
When will we learn to stop killing our kids? Anything less is mere political posturing.
I thought I’d write this week about nature. Maybe about birds, or about the compost pile we’ve started behind my home by digging up and chipping a pile of brush, beneath which we found tons of worms.
But she won’t stop haunting me, the 25-year-old lass, twinkling blue eyes, light-brown-sugar hair pouring in almost-ruly curls around her face, her young body scattered …
This could get R-rated in a hurry, though not because of the blood, and certainly not because of sex. Turn on HBO for the latest episode of “Game of Thrones” for what the Resident Critic calls “Blood, Brawn and …” I leave the third word for the reader to discern. But unlike “Game of Thrones,” Karlijn Keijzer will not be back next season.
She was a daughter, maybe a girlfriend, a compatriot of fellow students on a university rowing team. What she was not was merely one of 298 civilians murdered in a growing war in a region over which their Boeing 777 passenger jet just happened to fly.
Also not returning are three blue-eyed youngsters who climbed aboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, towing their grandfather toward their next adventure. Ready for their new school year were 12-year-old Mo Maslin, his 10-year-old sister Evie, and eight-year-old brother Otis.
“We ask the media to respect the privacy of our family and friends – pain is not a story,” the parents were quoted July 23 in The Guardian. But the pain is the story. Or should be.
Writers learn in school to use action words, rather than offering a passive description, but I think I understand why news reports say, “among the dead,” rather than “among the murdered.” Regardless who pressed the button that launched the missile that blew MH-17 out of the sky over Ukraine, murdered is what they were.
Some of us senior citizens will remember the “Andy Griffith Show” episode in which Opie shot and killed a bird with his new slingshot. It was sort of an accident, considering the pre-teen Opie had been warned to be careful what he aimed at. His dad, the sheriff, made certain the youngster felt badly about leaving a nest of young birds parentless.
But there is no one to make the missile shooters feel badly about having, accidentally or deliberately, shot down and slaughtered 298 people who were not any part of the conflict being waged below them. Instead, we talk about Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin’s complicity in the technology and experts he has sent to the region in eastern Ukraine, conveniently glossing over the technology and experts we have sent to Iraq, and others we promise to leave in Afghanistan.
It’s convenient to blame the airline for flying over a combat area, but until July 17, it was a safe flight path. The aircraft was at 33,000 feet, well away from the small arms fire being exchanged between Ukrainian nationalists and separatists.
We decry the deaths Israel has inflicted on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, shooting at them like fish in a barrel, trapped between Israel and the sea. The 50,000 troops Prime Minister Netanyahu called up are about one quarter of the population they are invading.
Kids swimming and playing on the beach, blown up so a couple of old guys can each try to prove he is bigger and stronger than the other. If a group of 20-something parents from each side sat down to discuss which of their kids they were willing to kill, would the war go on?
When will we learn to stop killing our kids? Anything less is mere political posturing.