Musings on a Rainy Afternoon: From Myanmar to Celebrity-Gods

Lately, the days are all raw and rainy. This is strange weather for May in Manhattan but who dares to complain? At least we are not enduring earthquakes, typhoons, hurricanes, tsunamis, or forest fires.

I cannot imagine the suffering of those in Myanmar who have just lost their loved ones, their homes, and their health– to the weather. May God have mercy upon them. Thus far, humanity has not risen to the occasion. The same United Nations that would not “intervene” to save the victims in Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Congo, or Darfur are not saving those condemned to death, not by an earthquake, but by their own leaders in Myanmar.

Those who continue to call for matters to be settled (not by American military intervention) but by some imagined beneficent Tribe of Elders known as “the international community,” are queerly quiet now as are all those diplomats who say that we must first meet and reason with the kind of evil men who control life and death in Myanmar. Do such well-meaning diplomats believe that lives lost while waiting for diplomacy to kick in are not as important as lives lost as “collateral damage” in high risk military ventures?

Enough of these rainy thoughts. Here’s what’s on my mind, what’s really been bothering me. Where have all our standards gone? Gone to heaven, everyone?

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