July 8, 2008
“ tell me the last time you saw the body of a dead american soldier? what does that look like? who in america knows what that looks like? i know what it looks like and i feel responsible for the fact that no one else does.

lara logan, cbs chief foreign correspondent on the media’s santization of the war in iraq and jon stewart’s question on whether the american public has gotten “numb” and “lost [their] humanity with the entire situation”

i try to remain positive on a lot of issues….but there is nothing to be positive about when it comes to the war in iraq and it constantly pisses me off that we…i…. forget that so many lives….iraqi and american alike….are being lost every single waking day. during the war in vietnam…americans would often turn on their televisions and see bodies of dead american soldiers being loaded off airplanes to be buried. this helped fuel a sense of urgency and outrage. not so much anymore. the best view we get of what’s really going on are cleaned up memorial pages on news websites and numbers of the dead. numbers that we have all gotten used to hearing. 5 dead sounds almost the same as 50 dead and 100 dead and 4000 dead. as much as i adore madonna, it simply doesnt matter that she might possibly be maybe not divorcing guy. it doesnt really matter that ive gone way over my cell phone minutes for the third month in a row. and it certainly doesnt matter that my chai tea latte wasn’t quite up to par this morning and a client pissed me off. none of it matters when it’s put into proper perspective. i’m not standing on a soapbox and im not judging the fact that we all must carry on with our lives as we know it. but i think it’s important to pause more often than not to remember that people who once had lives similar to ours are now waking up every day in a war zone.