You'll excuse me for waiting...
Apr. 2nd, 2005 05:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradept...but I wanted to make sure that all the potential deaths had happened before I started in on talking about any of them.
I've talked about Bill's death - he was a great man - I'm sorry I didn't get to know him more, but college kept me away from a lot of what was going on there. Even not knowing him all that well, I miss him. I think his absence will be most felt when the anime group meets Saturday next. We'll figure something out, though. JAMS should live on, even if it looks like the core group is scattering.
The Schiavo death - a media frenzy. Sharks everywhere, people fighting and ignoring the rules of law to try and get their own agendas across. I wonder what this media blitz covered up that was happening in the world - the Pres will come back to try and get one person's life where it's convenient, but hasn't done a whole lot about the multiple and consistent killings in the rest of the world, like Sudan. I suppose what Stalin (?) said was right - "One man's death is a tragedy. One million deaths is a statistic." I am more concerned over the media circus than the actually details of the case itself. Those who brought it into such public eyes should be drawn and quartered. What they might get is something just as bad - infighting between the governmental units.
And after a long life, Pope John Paul II has passed away. Since I was raised in a Catholic household, and have relatives who are priests, this is something important to my lifetime - John Paul II has been the only Pope known to anyone of my generation, and possibly of the generation before. At the same time, while he's been around and I've heard bits occasionally about him - I didn't pay much attention. but as he was dying, I couldn’t help but think that this was the same sort of media circus that accompanied the Schiavo case - suddenly, everyone was paying attention because the pontiff was dying. There's just something not right about it. Once the new Pope is elected, unless he does something drastic, he will return to the background like the last Pope did.
Something like this should be a segment of the evening news, sure, but it's not something that requires the media or the world to stop while we wait for him to die. Perhaps I'm just being bitter towards Catholicism in general, but things ring false here. Wasn’t there a Scripture remark about "Beware of Pharisees, who go about praying loudly in the streets" - not an exact translation or recital, mind you. An expression of grief is acceptable - thousands of devoted people praying tribute, good, but the constant presence of the camera and the feed to the media makes it all seem like a farce. Perhaps I really am concerned that those passing on should do so with privacy and dignity, especially if they are famous (or made to be so).
This many passings in these times brings us to think about our own mortality as well - as much as I want to be remembered and inspiring to many, I would rather be remembered as the hero of lore, who always has a witness but never has a crowd. It is also true that many of us could not exist tomorrow - an unsettling thought. Yet as we grow older, that thought is a necessary one.
Best to stop now, before I ramble incoherently about things... I'm already feeling a bit pointless in this.
I've talked about Bill's death - he was a great man - I'm sorry I didn't get to know him more, but college kept me away from a lot of what was going on there. Even not knowing him all that well, I miss him. I think his absence will be most felt when the anime group meets Saturday next. We'll figure something out, though. JAMS should live on, even if it looks like the core group is scattering.
The Schiavo death - a media frenzy. Sharks everywhere, people fighting and ignoring the rules of law to try and get their own agendas across. I wonder what this media blitz covered up that was happening in the world - the Pres will come back to try and get one person's life where it's convenient, but hasn't done a whole lot about the multiple and consistent killings in the rest of the world, like Sudan. I suppose what Stalin (?) said was right - "One man's death is a tragedy. One million deaths is a statistic." I am more concerned over the media circus than the actually details of the case itself. Those who brought it into such public eyes should be drawn and quartered. What they might get is something just as bad - infighting between the governmental units.
And after a long life, Pope John Paul II has passed away. Since I was raised in a Catholic household, and have relatives who are priests, this is something important to my lifetime - John Paul II has been the only Pope known to anyone of my generation, and possibly of the generation before. At the same time, while he's been around and I've heard bits occasionally about him - I didn't pay much attention. but as he was dying, I couldn’t help but think that this was the same sort of media circus that accompanied the Schiavo case - suddenly, everyone was paying attention because the pontiff was dying. There's just something not right about it. Once the new Pope is elected, unless he does something drastic, he will return to the background like the last Pope did.
Something like this should be a segment of the evening news, sure, but it's not something that requires the media or the world to stop while we wait for him to die. Perhaps I'm just being bitter towards Catholicism in general, but things ring false here. Wasn’t there a Scripture remark about "Beware of Pharisees, who go about praying loudly in the streets" - not an exact translation or recital, mind you. An expression of grief is acceptable - thousands of devoted people praying tribute, good, but the constant presence of the camera and the feed to the media makes it all seem like a farce. Perhaps I really am concerned that those passing on should do so with privacy and dignity, especially if they are famous (or made to be so).
This many passings in these times brings us to think about our own mortality as well - as much as I want to be remembered and inspiring to many, I would rather be remembered as the hero of lore, who always has a witness but never has a crowd. It is also true that many of us could not exist tomorrow - an unsettling thought. Yet as we grow older, that thought is a necessary one.
Best to stop now, before I ramble incoherently about things... I'm already feeling a bit pointless in this.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-04-02 11:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-02 11:08 pm (UTC)So I have no idea what kind of pope he is or wil be remembered as.