NPR had some great programming about the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima. One survivor said he wanted people to remember…the terrible blast, the subsequent radiation horror. I think he said it was the worst thing ever.
It was.
So was the holocaust. So was the Rwanda massacre. Hurricane Katrina. Ferguson. Cancer.
Really. The worst thing ever.
I’m all for disaster relief, reparations, et. al. But I don’t really understand. Why do we call out the feds when 10,000 people suffer, but not when one suffers?
I always liked this poem:
Devouring Famine, Plague, and War,
Each able to undo mankind,
Death’s servile emissaries are;
Nor to these alone confined,
He hath at will
More quaint and subtle ways to kill;
A smile or kiss, as he will use the art,
Shall have the cunning skill to break a heart.– James Shirley
English, 1596-1666