Lawrence Beck
It's not so much the city as the people who live in it: white Westerners. They're the only people who matter. If Arabs are killed, so what? If Africans are killed, so what? If Westerners who are the wrong color are killed, so what? That's why nobody gets worked up about the victims of US terrorism, the wedding parties and hospitals and women and children killed from the sky. Who cares? They're just a bunch of Muslims.
2015-11-16

josephus
Ken, you're right of course. Paris seems to be a touchstone that resonates with the media and people in general. Beirut and other Middle East cities don't get the press Paris does because, sadly, violence is a common everyday event in them and the media reports only, in their terms, the unique and exceptional rather than the mundane. Sad when violence in a city or region mundane.
2015-11-16

one trick pony
P. S. What a wonderful thing that poetbay has forged friendships for you across the world. This says something good about the internet, and something good about you.

I'm glad your friends are well. I learned that a student from a nearby American university was killed. Senseless, but the truth is Americans die every week in senseless shootings. It is a different kind of terror.
2015-11-16

one trick pony
Since the attacks I've followed the news on the New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, Politico, and others. Today was the first I had seen of the 43 killed in Beirut. Why is this? Because I, and other Westerners, have become inured to death by suicide bombers in the Middle East. Why is there no news about the children killed every week on the south side of Chicago. The mass media is doing its job, which is to make money. it's pretty simple, write about what sells.
2015-11-16