Thursday, August 18, 2016

Sometimes the news is so terrible that even reporters have trouble holding it together.

Courtesy of Mediaite: 

CNN’s Kate Bolduan is a reporter who asks tough questions and is often expressive and emphatic when she does it. Today, however, she was expressive in a very different way. While sharing a video of a five-year-old Syrian named Omran Daqneesh sitting in the back of an ambulance with blood and soot all over him, Bolduan was tasked with explaining that he and his family were pulled from the rubble that was once their house. She said that there had been an air strike — which is common, as the country has been embroiled in a violent civil war for years — but had to stop and compose herself a few times.

I started seeing this little boy's image all over cable TV and the internet today and I have to admit that my reaction was very similar to Ms. Bolduan's.

Here is more about the little boy courtesy of the New York Times: 

In the images, he sits alone, a small boy coated with gray dust and encrusted blood. His little feet barely extend beyond his seat. He stares, bewildered, shocked and, above all, weary, as if channeling the mood of Syria. 

The boy, identified by medical workers as Omran Daqneesh, 5, was pulled from a damaged building after a Syrian government or Russian airstrike in the northern city of Aleppo. He was one of 12 children under the age of 15 treated on Wednesday, not a particularly unusual figure, at one of the hospitals in the city’s rebel-held eastern section, according to doctors there. 

But some images strike a particular nerve, for reasons both obvious and unknowable, jarring even a public numbed to disaster. Omran’s is one.

Unbelievably sad, and this little boy is just one of many innocent victims in a war not of their making.

Now if you will excuse me it seems I have something in my eye. 

34 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:13 PM

    I have something in my eye as well, Gryphen. I appreciate your post.
    -Omaha

    ReplyDelete
  2. My right is "watering". The left is still OK for now. But I do have a new favorite at CNN.

    You go Bolduan! and thanks G

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous4:38 PM

    You've done your readers a great service by showing this piece. It's the innocents who hurt the most, and it's only by sheer accident of place and time of birth. We need to stop sanitizing war and showing the reality more.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous4:44 PM

    OT?"All but two of the victims found in “Operation Summer Rescue” were under 18 years old, police said."
    http://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/los-angeles-human-trafficking-sweep-leads-to-nearly-300-arrests/

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous4:48 PM

    The little Syrian refugee boy who washed ashore should have made us all cry.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous4:50 PM

    Sad to see. A world full of adults, and children have to pay the price for human stupidity. Sorrow in our world today for that little boy who personifies the evil in this world. I feel a churning in my stomach as I think of people like Putin, Manafort, Trump, Palin and that Syrian leader who is being protected for his atrocities. They don't care about the children, or the women. They are not wanting to solve the world problems, they are wanting to live in it at the expense of others. It's got to end.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous4:58 PM

      Those who you name ALL support it.
      Not their kids dying; who gives a shit?

      Delete
    2. Anonymous5:58 PM

      And they're all "pro life"

      Delete
  7. Anonymous4:56 PM

    Trump should see this picture and relate it to his praise of strong men and Putin. And he should shake his head very hard about the plight of the Syrian refugees who risk their lives, the lives of their children and leave their homes and everything they own and everyone they know for the safety of countries like Canada and the US. As a Canadian citizen I am so proud of our country for opening our hearts to these people who have suffered so much. We shall benefit greatly from their contribution to our Canadian society.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous5:11 PM

      Shake his head?!
      Never from his golden throne!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous5:14 PM

      "A decade later, the aborted exercise is arousing new interest: American diplomatic cables and Ukrainian prosecutors say the anti-US, anti-NATO protests that threatened these Marines were largely partisan plants, organized by politicians who consulted with Paul Manafort, now the prominent campaign aide to presidential candidate Donald Trump."Ukrainian prosecutors believe Manafort actively helped to foment unrest in the incident, one of a long line of provocations they say may have contributed to Eastern Ukraine’s secession from the country and Russia’s interference in the region, known as Crimea."" a senior prosecutor alleges that Manafort, in fact, “orchestrated” the Sea Breeze protests and other anti-NATO demonstrations, forcing cancellation of the exercise. “While I was in the Crimea I constantly saw evidence suggesting that Paul Manafort considered autonomy [from Ukraine] as a tool to enhance the reputation of Yanukovych and win over the local electorate,”

      http://fusion.net/story/338016/trump-manafort-marines-nato-protests/

      Delete
    3. Anonymous6:56 PM

      More 5:14>"According to the AP, the emails show that Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, worked on a “covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine’s ruling political party, attempting to sway American public opinion in favor of the country’s pro-Russian government.” "Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, never disclosed their work as foreign agents between 2012 and 2014 as required under federal law."
      http://www.politicususa.com/2016/08/18/bombshell-emails-show-trump-advisers-secretly-campaigned-pro-russian-ukraine.html

      Delete
  8. Anonymous5:25 PM

    Yeah, photographs of suffering children really touch our hearts. Buying cheap shit at Wal-Mart made by 5 year olds, not so much.
    Every child is precious. But when will we quit buying cheap shit made by children? When will we, by our choices, protect children? Just curious.
    GeorgiaPeach

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:04 PM

      I never shop at Walmart, GeorgiaPeach, but some people have no choice. Who's responsible for shipping jobs overseas? That's right. Our government bowing to corporations long before President Obama became president. Guns? Our government long before President Obama became president.

      These are sick SICK people and we are at their mercy just trying to live our lives. I don't trust a one of them; not even Hillary.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous8:07 PM

      Because some can't even make enough.

      Delete
  9. Anonymous5:56 PM

    Not many people realize that years before Putin began bombing civilians and years before ISIS, Bashar al Assad was killing Syrian citizens every Friday when they protested against his corrupt and criminal minority rule- refusing to be cowed.

    Syrians are very brave people.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous6:51 PM

      Not many people realize the association that they have with Putin. Be careful what you vote for, America, you just might get it.

      Delete
  10. Anonymous7:21 PM

    Lawrence O'Donnell said tonight that, because of the picture/story, Russia agreed to a 48-hour ceasefire.

    So big of Putin.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous8:08 PM

      That is good. But could he just say stop. But there will just be a new crazy.

      Delete
  11. Anonymous7:29 PM

    The American Civil War was a terrible thing as well. We fought each other and we then healed and coalesced as a nation. Syria will have to at some point find their own equilibrium as well. Civil Wars, all wars, have casualties, many innocents and children. It is sad, but it is a fact of life.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous8:22 PM

    This is not a civil war, it's not Syrian against Syrian, it's Syrians against Bashar al Assad, Putin and Iran. Oh, and ISIS.

    The US Civil War didn't enjoin the aggrieved people whose human rights had been crushed, it was a proxy war.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous9:22 PM

      Then it's a misnomer propagated by the media because it's always referred to as the "Syrian Civil War".

      Not to be crass and uncaring but we do have enough problems on our plate as Americans and I fully believe that nations need to fight their own battles.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous9:48 PM

      HOW Isis began Under Bu$h and Cheney>
      https://www.amazon.com/Black-Flags-Rise-Joby-Warrick/dp/0385538219

      Delete
  13. Anonymous9:22 PM

    We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blond who
    Comes on at five
    She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam
    In her eye
    It's interesting when people die
    Give us dirty laundry

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous9:35 PM

    HELLO -WELL NOW>
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/us/politics/hillary-clinton-told-fbi-colin-powell-advised-her-to-use-private-email.html?utm_source=huffingtonpost.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pubexchange&_r=0

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous9:55 PM

    Gryphen, Hillarys support of neo con war Policies had a lot to do with the plight of many like this boy in Syria. Your naked support of Hillary while mourning for Syrians is hypocritical at best

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous1:06 AM

      Squawk! Squawk! Polly repeat rightwing lies! What a good little parrot you are!

      Delete
    2. Anonymous3:01 AM

      I don't think this is Hillary Clinton's fault. The problems throughout the Middle East predate the present generation of US leaders. One has to wonder about the Syria's own leader whose cruelty against his own citizens who oppose him seems to have no bounds. And one has to wonder about the foreign leader, Putin, who is so willing to help with the carnage by bombing a long-besieged city.
      Beaglemom

      Delete
  16. I found the pictures of the Syrian rebels taunting, then beheading, a child whom they had taken prisoner, far more horrific.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous7:25 AM

      I saw the vidoe-The only english i heard was" what can i get for this? The boy was 12.
      It was horrific.
      Boys and girls are hunted and abused everywhere.

      Delete
  17. Anonymous4:19 AM

    According to a recent United Nations report, U.S. and allied forces killed 24 children in Afghanistan in 2014. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan over the past decade have killed between 172 and 207 children.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous7:20 AM

    Right here at home:
    https://thinkprogress.org/american-college-pediatricians-transgender-kids-falsehoods-384716df13c5#.u7j14nh5p

    https://thinkprogress.org/mike-pence-public-health-406b5d08c7de#.19ea9l25j

    ReplyDelete
  19. Anonymous8:14 AM

    "Suffering is connected" Nothing Ever Dies.. TRUTH!

    http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674660342

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous9:23 AM

      https://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Brave-Forgiven-Chris-Cleave/dp/1501124374
      a Novel
      WW2, Vietnam, Now....

      Delete

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