our ethnocentrism

Okay I have to ask- is it just me is anyone else bothered by our American ethnocentrism- Sometimes I get so irate at American media outlets for their lack of balanced global coverage- they spend hours and hours on the most trivial things and banter about minutiae when all over the world devastating things occur and get maybe a 20 second mention if any at all? I have been so sad the last few days thinking about the devastation in Myanmar. Seriously the estimates projecting up to 100,000 people dead, 1 million people displaced. That is more than 30x the loss of life in September 11th attacks more than 50x that of Hurricane Katrina. How can that not make you sad, how can that not profoundly impact you. As if it weren't bad enough on top of the devastation to be held down by your countries isolationist government? By next week most people here (if they even heard about it) will have forgetten it has even happened, meanwhile a million people try to build their lives again. Events like this happen all the time yet when they aren't in our own backyard, we easily brush past them or forget them.

I wish we were more globally minded. I wish our cultured cared more about countries in turmoil and less about what people were wearing and who the latest Hollywood couple is. We get so caught up in our own little worlds we forget to see the whole picture. I wish we could talk about real issues and spend our wealth helping people who need it through things like micro credit, education, empowering politcal change, and finding sustainable solutions to global issues. It makes me ill to see our culture so egocentric, so self obsessed, so pleasure seeking, so wasteful, so luxurious. We live in the days of "it's your money who am I to tell you what to do with it". This attitude sickens me as though we live in so godless void with no morality where our choices don't matter. They do matter, we have a moral obligation to help. It's easier to sleep at night with our full stomachs and comfortable beds waking up to good jobs, education, health care, opportunity if we just pretend the ugliness isn't out there.

Sometimes I can't keep my mouth shut- I am not above asking probing questions-- How often to really help those who are less fortunate- those who weren't born to such affluence and opportunity. When was the last time we sacrificed enough of ourselves our our means to even really feel it? If our bond runs no deeper than as one mother to another trying to creating a good life for her children- Let us reach out more- in whatever ways we can. Lets make a few more sacrifices, lets give up more of the unimportant things for things that can literally save or change lives forever! I won't tell you what causes to support, they are many good ones- but find one, and do your part. Because when it is all said and done we will wish we had done it more!

1. my home

2. plenty of food

3. the opportunity to do something for others