I lend two distinctly separate ears to today’s poignant plea for understanding by the American soldier known as Isaac.
While reading his plaintive essay (“Please Don’t Forget Us”), you can imagine him scribbling down his thoughts on a messy tablet amidst a background of high-tech gunfire somewhere inside wartime Iraq.
Surrounded by the most powerful ammunition ever created by mankind, Isaac, a very young man, is frustrated.
He can mow down Muslim terrorists every afternoon, but he is frustrated that he is helpless to affect the staggering difference, the imbalance between the coverage of funerals for brave soldiers and the massive coverage of Michael Jackson, just an entertainer.
While I can embrace Isaac’s heartfelt cry with one ear, the other is telling me, coldly, that is life, pal, the way it has been since the Garden of Eden or caveman times.
Periodically, it is necessary to remind even smart people that life never comports to our notion of fair.
End of discussion.
I have not a doubt that Mr. Obama’s presence in the White House has — nationwide — green-lighted many sincere-believing black extremists to give vent to their long private emotions, crying out “We are superior” at every opportunity.
Except for the dolts among us, mainly dangling from the left wing, it is what all cultures do when oppression, perceived or real, ends.
None of which has anything to do with Isaac’s complaint.
If Mr. Jackson’s death had been restricted to a line in the Classified Section, coverage of military funerals would not change.
The main reason:
Extraordinary courage aside — more than I have acquired, cumulatively, in a long life — soldiers are private citizens, unknown outside of their intimate circle, the fate of many of us.
Hometown boys and girls usually receive appropriate farewells in their community newspapers, leaving as privately and discreetly as they entered the world.
What sparked the outburst was not the fault of Mr. Jackson. As deflating as it may sound, this is the history of the human condition that glamour folks will be treated more royally because many persons believe they are.
