sucked into the news
Aug. 2nd, 2007 07:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ljgeoffI try not to read too much news. Almost all of it is entertainment, and usually of the horrible train-wreck, bridge-collapsing kind.
Last week, I read about the attack on the family in Connecticut, and had a sudden thought: no one is talking about the rage that simmers in the underclass for those in the upper class.
Back in 1992, Mike and I were living in an old shell of a house in Ishpeming. We'd got the upstairs buttoned up, still rough, but livable. Then, in December, we had a record cold spell and almost every damn water main in town burst. We were told that we wouldn't have water until spring.
So we rented a place across town. After we moved out, a couple of kids broke in and vandalized the place with black spray paint. I had left a plaque hanging on the wall -- a Father's Day gift to Mike that praised Dads.
The spay painter had obliterated it with black paint. A couple of weeks later, they broke into the empty house again, started a fire in the middle of the living room floor "to keep warm" and burned the place to the ground. We lost everything that we'd stored in the house, and when we didn't have the money to pay for demolition of the house, the city took the property, too.
I can't seem to chivvy up any anger for our loss. There were a few cool things in storage, but not anything we couldn't live without. What I do feel is a kind of sorrow, and a feeling of unease at the anger that was so evident in this attack. At the time, the boys were just 12 or 13 years old. Where are they now? Both of them lived in sad, broken homes.
We were very poor at the time. But our family has always been secure and joyful. We laugh a lot.
I can see why a miserably sad kid would break out in rage against us. And a kid like that, he wouldn't even know why he did it.
No one is talking about poverty and neglect, rage, and the haves and have-nots.
Last week, I read about the attack on the family in Connecticut, and had a sudden thought: no one is talking about the rage that simmers in the underclass for those in the upper class.
Back in 1992, Mike and I were living in an old shell of a house in Ishpeming. We'd got the upstairs buttoned up, still rough, but livable. Then, in December, we had a record cold spell and almost every damn water main in town burst. We were told that we wouldn't have water until spring.
So we rented a place across town. After we moved out, a couple of kids broke in and vandalized the place with black spray paint. I had left a plaque hanging on the wall -- a Father's Day gift to Mike that praised Dads.
The spay painter had obliterated it with black paint. A couple of weeks later, they broke into the empty house again, started a fire in the middle of the living room floor "to keep warm" and burned the place to the ground. We lost everything that we'd stored in the house, and when we didn't have the money to pay for demolition of the house, the city took the property, too.
I can't seem to chivvy up any anger for our loss. There were a few cool things in storage, but not anything we couldn't live without. What I do feel is a kind of sorrow, and a feeling of unease at the anger that was so evident in this attack. At the time, the boys were just 12 or 13 years old. Where are they now? Both of them lived in sad, broken homes.
We were very poor at the time. But our family has always been secure and joyful. We laugh a lot.
I can see why a miserably sad kid would break out in rage against us. And a kid like that, he wouldn't even know why he did it.
No one is talking about poverty and neglect, rage, and the haves and have-nots.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-03 02:40 am (UTC)Good news is usually subjective. Somebody gets to succeed at something they've done, it often means someone else *doesn't* get to have what they want. Especially when the agencies involved are huge.
Bad news doesn't have nearly as much controversy around it: it's easier to find and report on things that everyone thinks is bad.
And then there's that bit in V for Vendetta, where the powers that be are out to convince the world that everything is so awful, they can't possibly exist without a powerful central government. Subsitute corporate oligopoly for government, and you've got the news service today.
As for losing your home to a pair of arsonist homeless kids: Ouch. I just don't know what to say to that.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-03 08:55 pm (UTC)Loosing the house was a bummer. But here's the thing: every time something "bad" happens in my life, the long-term outcome has always been for my and my family's good. Weird, huh?