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In these times of modern times, when you can’t tell your ACs from your DCs, aren’t we all looking for a little stopping power? — Firesign Theatre

Speaking of Bob Geiger, he’s reposted a piece he wrote last year called I Know This Little Boy In New Orleans. I didn’t know about Geiger’s blog last year, so I’m glad he reposted this. Go read the whole thing, please.

I know the little boy in this picture.

No, I don’t know him personally. But he is roughly the same age as my small son. This boy is beautiful, innocent, vulnerable and probably very scared in this photo.

I know this young boy.

New calamities, outrages and diversions rush at us every day — every hour, sometimes — each one dragging our attention away from the one before. They come so quickly, it seems, that we don’t have time to truly understand any one of these events. Inspired by a photo of a little boy stuck in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina, Gieger stopped the world for a moment, and probed for a deeper understanding.

Read it. And once you’ve read it, stop the world for another moment. Think about the Palestinian and Lebanese children under Israeli bombs, and about the Israeli children under Hezbollah and Hamas rockets and terror bombings. Think of the people whose homes and jobs and families were swept away by the Indian Ocean tsunami, or by earthquakes in Pakistan, or by “ethnic cleansing” in Darfur. Think of all the photos of missing faces tacked up in New York City by desperate friends and loved ones after the murderous attacks of 9/11. Think of ordinary people trying to live a decent life in Baghdad without becoming someone’s “collateral damage.”

Hurts, doesn’t it?

I have a friend who says “life is cheap” in the Mideast. During the Vietnam War, I heard it said that the Vietnamese don’t respect life the way we do. Sure. And as Daffy Duck once said, “I’m not like other people — pain hurts me.”

It’s no wonder the 24-hour news networks give us a relentless diet of inconsequential trivia rather than getting to the bottom of events that are killing hundreds of children today. It’s anesthesia.