To the forgotten five

Apologies for the dark and frightening side of the Blogosphere. So five children were found dead, likely killed.  Likely killed by their father.  Details are emerging.  They may have been shot.  We really don't know.  The story wasn't even in the first segments of the news this morning.  On cable I didn't see it mentioned at all in the time I had.  By now I'm sure more are discussing it.  I searched the blogs, and nothing.

Was a time, a time I am old enough to remember, that a story like this would have been the topic of conversation for a week at least.  But today?  Silence.  No blogs at all.  Google the story, and you won't find a blog covering it on the first page.  Pick a cop brutality story or mass shooting, and half of the first page of Google is dominated by blogs and comments. Yet today?  Silence.  Not even a prayer on Catholic sites I visit.

This is all leading me to the very disturbing thought that we've turned a corner somewhere.  Turned a corner where such stories now only grab out attention insofar as they help advance an agenda, or score points, or demonize a group or individual.  It's as if we've taken Stalin's famous quip and added a heartless third part: a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic, but unknown numbers of murdered and tortured are irrelevant unless they advance the agenda and help me win an argument on the Internet.

Hence the selective outrage over one death here and the complete apathy regarding a dozen deaths there.  The cry for action when the horrors in question can be blamed on US policy, while daily suffering around the world is ignored if it doesn't fit an agenda, a narrative, or a point.

Those who suffer, even when they aren't smart enough to suffer for a blogger's pet cause, deserve better.  So to those poor children, killed and dumped like garbage in a case that will only matter if it can be blamed on race, religion, guns, or some other modern gospel message, apologies.  Through God's grace may you have peace for eternity that in your short lives was taken from you in this world.