compassion

One of the most interesting things to watch in the past 4 years has been the changing face of compassion.

Compassion has been especially interesting in the past 10 months, starting with the Tsunami in Indonesian and the Indian Ocean right up to the events with hurricane Katrina (just a random thought, how come we don't name earthquakes?).

At the same time as these events have been going on, there has been slow motion starvation going on in Africa and North Korea, as well as human caused events of mass death in Dharfur, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

When "photogenic" events of mass destruction take place, the world wide outpouring of support is incredible, in the billions of dollars. When death takes place on a slow basis, or is the direct result of human activity, the reaction is slow to non-existent. If you were to ask people on the street how they feel about the devastation caused by Katrina, I imagine you would see people wringing their hands, talking about how awful it is. If you were to ask the same people how they feel about the events in Dharfur, you would get the same number of quizzical looks followed by an interrogative "Dharfur?".

I don't doubt for a second the legitimacy of their concern and their compassion. People genuinely were upset by the devastation caused by the tsunami and Katrina. I just find it interesting that people react with overwhelming compassion to one event, and complete ambivelance about another.