In Other News
I was reading Saturday's Dominion Post, Wellington's local newspaper, and guess what I came across in the world section? Lo and behold, it was a short article from the AP wire about where else but Ann Arbor, Michigan. I shouted to my roommates that my hometown had appeared in their newspaper halfyway around the world.
Stupidly, I didn't think to see what the article was actually about before reading it to them out loud and showing them how my home is represented in the international press. I had actually read the same story in the Ann Arbor News a few days before:
http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-18/115029425989890.xml&coll=2
My roommates' first question was "Why would anyone be carrying a gun around like that?" Good question. Honestly, that didn't even really occur to me. I didn't realize just how prevalent gun violence is in the US until I came overseas. There are almost never stories about shootings, and if there are, they're big news. Just when trying to find the link to this article, I found three gun stories on the AA News 14-day archive. It makes me sad that I have grown up seeing these stories on a regular basis and thinking that it's the norm. Not to say that there is not violence here, but there is definitely a lot less, or at the very least, a lot less reporting on it.
5 comments:
I missed this in our own paper, probably because there is, as you note, so much of this stuff with guns. It makes clear to me once again how idiotic it is to think that we don't need control. Why in the world would we ever issue permits to carry a concealed weapon? What would your friends in NZ think of Bowling for Columbine?
Great, I don't even know what to say.
Update: apparently the woman is now considering marrying the man
Love is blind, I guess. Does anyone else think that this is a less than perfect proposal?
I had the same reaction.
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