That's right. I couldn't be happier.
You see, I am glad that people are finally waking up to the problem of young children dying needlessly. For instance, how many children died today in the Gaza school attacked by Israel -- and if you know the number, try naming the kids.
Or how many kids died in Uganda today as part of the Lord's Resistance Army? And if, somewhere you're saying to yourself, that's Africa: what do those dumb niggers know (and if you're thinking that, you're probably thinking "niggers"), check out how many other countries enlist kids Jett's age or just a few months older, to do their dirty work. I see England, and the U.S., and the Philippines, while in the other countries, it is a veritable Romper Room.
Of course, it's not just the military that kills kids. Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That's one child every five seconds. See if you can name them, and point to their pics in People magazine -- or are they not People?
And then there are diseases: not the diseases that come about because of the chemicals used to sterilize kids' carpets, but the basics like neonatal disorders, pneumonia, and diarrhea. Internationally, about 9.7 million children under five will die from these diseases this year -- that's 18 a minute, not counting the fun diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. How long have you spent reading this blog post?
Now, young Jett was lucky. Vinnie Barbarino could have afforded to buy his son the best medical care imaginable -- he could have bought him a friggin' hospital if he wanted, but for fear of the evil space monster Xenu, he decided against it. Jett was that much luckier than the 8.1 million kids (10.7 percent of all kids) in the US who don't have any medical coverage. Too bad Jett pushed them off the main page. Maybe it would help if they just died on vacation in the Bahamas.
So, yes, I'm delighted that Jett Travolta is dead. And I hope that Suri Cruise is next.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
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Not cool. Unsubscribing.
Look who's high and mighty with her powers of unsubscription.
At least she didn't post anonymously.
Danny, I don't know what kind of stuff is going on in your life that you would celebrate ANYBODY'S death ... but it really is pathetic. Just because Jett was fortunate enough to be born into a wealthy family didn't change the fact that HE WAS A SWEET KID WHO IS STILL DEAD.
I have always enjoyed reading your blog; even when I disagreed with you. But celebrating Jett's, or any innocent, death has completely changed my opinion of you. You are not the decent, honorable person I had thought. And for that I feel sorry for you.
@Anon The Second:
In all fairness to Danny, I think he is really not glad Jet is dead, but rather was denouncing the media circus of buzzards which has descended on this latest celebrity family tragedy, to the exclusion of countless other "ordinary" tragedies that occur every minute.
I'm no big fan of John Revolta either (except for the scene in Pulp Fiction where Bruce Willis shoots him on the toilet...I really can't see that enough:) but I do feel sympathy for him not only due to the loss but for having to endure this feeding frenzy. I think Danny does too in fact.
Of course there is bound to be such misunderstandings when you entitled something "I'm delighted that Jett Travolta is dead." He could have made his point a bit more tactfully. This is where our Wolly Bully losses people.
@RDH. I would beg to disagree with you. Danny is extremely articulate and is an excellent writer. I expect that Danny said exactly what he meant. If it had been more in what you believe, he would have said exactly what you did. It isn't too hard to denounce the media frenzy for what it is ... but Danny never did that. In fact, he ended with hoping for another child's death. Sorry, RDH, but this time he has gone too far and I for one find it makes Danny look pathetic.
There are some interesting points here and I think I should respond.
I think that RDH was closest to my point here. I am not happy when anyone dies, especially a child, especially someone who is apparently helpless as Jett seems to have been.
Having said that, quite frankly, I have to admit that I despise the media frenzy more. As I tried to point out in this post, how many children die for senseless reasons every single day? I am pretty sure no one (or at least very few) people who have read this knows a kid who died of diarrhea, but thousands have died of diarrhea every day. Sorry that diarrhea isn't as sexy as Kawasaki's, but the tragedy is no less deep.
And the same goes for all of the other causes I mentioned, and all the many other ones I did not.
The problem as I see it is the cult of celebrity. If it is a celebrity who gets ill, the world panics. If it is not a celebrity, the disease gets very little attention. And that happens to be true of virtually every disease. Believe me that if Suri Cruise got deathly ill from diarrhea, sick kids in South East Asia would get the help they need.
I have no compunction in saying that this attitude is wrong. It creates an unnatural division between people: rich and famous v. everyone else. To loosely paraphrase Stalin here: When a rich and famous person dies it is a tragedy. When tens of thousands of average people die it is a statistic. When hundreds of thousands of poor people in developing countries die from easily preventable causes ... "Ho hum, that's too bad. So what's for lunch?!"
Perhaps I chose a very extreme tack in my wording. If so, I did it consciously, hoping that people take a minute and think about the idea behind the words. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to shock people to get them to realize that lots of kids are dying, not just the child of some washed out celebrity.
On the topic of children starving, I read that Americans and Europeans spend more on pet food than would be required to meet the basic nutritional needs of all of humanity.
Anonymous, I have actually read that too, but I cannot remember where it was. These are the kinds of things that should be headlines, again and again and again.
As should these kids: http://teenadvocatesusa.homestead.com/tribute1.html
If only their deaths would receive the same kind of attention, maybe we could be a truly kinder, fairer society.
>You see, I am glad that people are finally waking up to the problem of young children dying needlessly. For instance, how many children died today in the Gaza school attacked by Israel -- and if you know the number, try naming the kids. <
Wow. You've come a long way from the days I knew you back in Or Chaim. (joseph.nerenberg@verizon.net)
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