I interrupt my holiday postings for a serious interlude:

I am becomingly increasingly concerned how so much of what the media and informed web commentators now push out at their readers is along the lines of

" increasingly growing accustomed to violence "

I have read ad nauseum commentary on Fallujah, and I am saddened that so many think that the medias portrayal of violence is somehow nuanced and different.

It is not....

Man begats violence, from the dawn of time cruelty to both the living and the dead has been the norm.

Sure a thin veneer of "civilization" has moved us past the rows of the Roman crucified, or the village pillory, or the Roman Pontiff exhumed and desecrated, or the gallows of Cromwellian England, or the guillotine of viva la revolution. But in the depths of the human being a violent terror lives....

The Romans ended up 'ruling' the empire with mercenaries and enjoyed bread and circuses. The western world pretends that its media is objective and truthful when all it is, is a method of dispensing 'entertainment". 'Our' need for terror and violence "out there" is now complete, a sense of safety is a bizarre result of seeing the horror elsewhere.

But if the horror is happening to non caucasians even on a genocidal level, few Westerners get emotionally involved...

The media continues to try to portray atrocities as something new and more gruesome than in the past.

NOT TRUE! I shout to the sky!

Humanity is a complex poly-behavioural beast. Tamed at times but the mob mentality, the desire to break free of both taboos and social mores is never far away.

It comes back to the individual - How nice can I be to someone else today? chaos theory notwithstanding - a better, peaceful world begins with me, NOW!