Have you ever noticed how in families that are killed in recent movies, the mother is given little or no focus. Batman Begins: The mother is never expilicitly mentioned after her death, she'd only referenced within the phrase "your parents." Hostage: In the beginning in which the dad kills the wife and son, the mother is given a total of two seconds screentime before Bruce Willis moves on to look for the kid. There are a couple more examples that I can't hink of right now since it's about 3 in the morning but it was something I noticed awhile ago. I'm not complaining abut or anything, there's usually some sort of reason for it and the overattention on kids that die is far worse, just posting a random revelation.

I'm sure many of you have heard speeches before about things that are dangerous for you, smoking, drunk driving etc... I just finished (around 11:30am actually) my last class in a Public Speaking course for this semester, where we were told that speeches like those are most effective when you relate the topic to the audience, you know, bring it closer to home. Tell them how many people their age die in an alcohol-related accidents, show them pictures of people with lung cancer. It makes sense to show explicitly how your topic affects your audience whet it comes to drugs and alcohol. People may not comprehend the damage they can do to themselves, especially if they overestimate their own willpower (believing that they can handle their liquor or will only smoke once in awhile.) But what I don't understand is the same mindset that comes with larger issues that will affect people other then the ones receiving the message, for instance, the blood diamond trade.

I read an article on this in a newspaper today that went into detail about this phenomena: About how the diamonds most people buy are being illegally traded, and are therefore funding mob wars against civilians and genocide in certain countries. The reason I bring this article up is that it also mentioned how this trade has funds Al-Queida (sp?) terrorists, the same ones responsible for the 9/11 attacks in America. While I found this to be an interesting note, it was how it was displayed in the article that angered me. It should've been placed in the middle of the article where the trade itself and it's consequences were being explained. Instead, it was placed at the end of the article and written in a way that meant to bring the story closer to home for anyone reading, to ultimately convince them to do something about it.

Now I don't fault the article itself, it's writer or the newspaper here, they were doing what anyone trying to get across a message would've done, they brought it closer to home. It just angers me that they were right about a far too large portion of the people reading. I know there are people out there who could read about an article about this absolute disaster and would still do nothing until the read those last couple of sentences, seeing just how it might, (not even will) just might affect their own future.

Why is it that fear of possible consequences against yourself is the only thing that convinces some people to step up? In this case not even to join a charity or give to the poor but to either not buy a diamond or if you do simply ask "Hey, does this store certify that their diamonds aren't in the blood diamond trade?" Why aren't the words "mass genocide" enough to spring anyone into action?