Did you hear? An elderly woman named Julia Childs died today… and it seems that as far as the news media is concerned that unfortunate event, the hurricane hitting Florida, and the opening of the Olympic Games, pretty well sums up todays major news stories.

IMO the hurricane in Florida is news, the opening of the Olympic games is ’sort of’ news, the death of Julia Childs, while a very sad loss for her family and friends is not news.

How many elderly women in the world died today? As a result of fighting in Amara, Baghdad, Basra, Najaf, or Dufar? As a result of starvation in Africa? Because affordable generic medication was not available in a third world country? Because they were worked to death in a sweat shop south of the equator so that some westerner could wear trendy shoes or fashionable jeans on a budget? Because they were homeless and uncared for on the streets of any decent sized North American city?

Will we see their names or their stories on the nightly news…… every hour, on the hour, for the next three days? We will not, they are the women western society does not want to acknowledge, they are collateral damage, they are disposable labour, they are something on the sidewalk that causes eyes to be averted and steps to quicken before one is forced to acknowledge their existence.

Literally thousands of elderly women died or were killed today - how many of them were given even a passing thought in the minds of western society during any one of the multitude of announcements about the one that is, apparently, news?

(The content of this post came from an older pMachine incarnation of stageleft with a different hosting company - comments, if any, didn’t make it into the rebuild)