WTF is this shit?

[triadruid]

Friday evening a mosque in Dayton, Ohio gets attacked with an airborne chemical irritant, and by Monday afternoon there's only four stories about it on Google News?!?

We're doomed.

Comments

[kenllama.livejournal.com]

I live in the next town over, and spent the weekend in Dayton, and I had no idea until Thorn posted about it this afternoon. Grar. Twice.

[matchgirl42.livejournal.com]

elorie had a post about it this morning, (http://elorie.livejournal.com/1195141.html) and I'm just as horrified as you are.

[eponinechakra.livejournal.com]

So, just to clarify, if Muslims possibly think about inflicting violence on us, it is a terrorist attack and warrants IMMEDIATE news coverage.

If Muslims are attacked in their place of worship, during a religious holiday, then it is a backup story for when there is nothing left to cover.

Makes perfect sense to me ;)

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

We're doomed.

No! Do you really think so?

I'm shocked, SHOCKED, to find gambling going on in here!

In all seriousness, did you really still think the press was free?

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Where the fuck did I say it had anything to do with a free press?

[geekatlarge.livejournal.com]

I'd have to concur in saying "what the fuck are you on about?"

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

Hm? I don't think you did... that's my assertion! I apologize if I seemed to be putting words in your mouth.

If you have an alternate explanation for the nearly complete absence of reporting, I'd love to hear it.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

My take is that our apathy, self-centeredness, and other distractions make this such a low-impact event (despite its obvious implications for religious bias, the War on Terror, and cultural clashes) that the media, as our proxy, can't summon up any enthusiasm for reporting on it, because they don't believe anybody will care.

Hence, "we" are doomed, not just the news editors or whatever. I think they're wrong, but I'm also certain that a large part of the U.S. population will NOT care.

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

No one died, no letters were left, there is no known extremist group in the area, it sounds more like a dark-hearted teen "prank". What with other top news items, and there not being any pictures, I'm not surprised it didn't get press.

Now the DailyKOS link that Mary posted mad it seem like quite a significant deal, but that seemed on par with Savage Nation reporting. So once you take out the fluff and look at the facts, some kid needs to get their ass kicked very hard... but this is not a national incident.

Although I would like it to be, because I think the War on Terror should be applied to the bullying tactics that naturally come about in feral teenagers.

[cynthiaweb.livejournal.com]

War on out-of-control hormones?

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

We need a War on Adolescent Behavior, clearly.

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

Sounds about as unreasonable as some of the other wars.

I'm rolling into teenage years here... I'll have three at the same time. I think the hormones declare war on everything else, don't they?

While having a 'leash law' for kids would be helpful ::snicker::, it's what they do when they aren't being watched and aren't afraid of consequences that is a problem. The bigger problem is that just being harder on teens doesn't always help. It often solidifies their desire to do something distasteful. ::sigh::

And that's the problem there, we can't fix the rampant ignorance of kids like that until we have a good way to modify their behavior.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

there is no known extremist group in the area
Actually, there's been a resurgence (continuance) of racialist activity in that part of Ohio lately. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

It's not necessarily a national incident. But it's not the local Civil Air Patrol chapter putting on an event, either...

[diermuid.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Coeur D Alene, Idaho... Major racist movement (although less newsworthy now that the old man running the Nazi Youth Camp out there is out of the picture) in a small area of town. The surge of ignorance (racism) in small areas isn't quite national news, although the smattering of these breeding grounds of hate should be. The problem is, the camps themselves do not promote violence. They had one running out in mid-Arkansas when I was a kid, and they were very keen to strike Libel suits against anyone who misrepresented them (similar to Fred Phelps group). So because their stucture does not condone violence, it becomes tricky to report on violence tied to them. But again, "chemical irritant" (assumably pepper spray) is sort of low-key (nationally) until you get to serious injuries.

Should it be that way? Perhaps not... although I'd bet a Benjamin that the news got to where it needed to get to - branch FBI office. They take that stuff pretty seriously, and are more interested in tracking and disbanding it than making nationwide press releases. Giving national attention to a bunch of attention-seeking chuckleheads is exactly what we DON'T want to do.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I hope you're right, and in a couple of weeks we'll hear some quiet announcement that the perpetrators have been caught because they left fingerprints, or whatever.

[dramaticaddict.livejournal.com]

et had it been a christian church... it would have been national headlines news....