The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: A Culture of Death, Not Life

The New York Times > A Culture of Death, Not Life: "Mortality - the more graphic, the merrier - is the biggest thing going in America. Between Terri Schiavo and the pope, we've feasted on decomposing bodies for almost a solid month now. The carefully edited, three-year-old video loops of Ms. Schiavo may have been worthless as medical evidence but as necro-porn their ubiquity rivaled that of TV's top entertainment franchise, the all-forensics-all-the-time 'CSI.' To help us visualize the dying John Paul, another Fox star, Geraldo Rivera, brought on Dr. Michael Baden, the go-to cadaver expert from the JonBenet Ramsey, Chandra Levy and Laci Peterson mediathons, to contrast His Holiness's cortex with Ms. Schiavo's."

Very interesting column, from a centre-left-leaning columnist. Discusses many of the issues that I have with the far right and how they focus on the spectacle rather than actually holding a true pro-life stance. Genocides, wars, world disasters--they count too! It's frightening, we humans always need our gruesome spectacle in life apparently--in Rome, it was the gladiators, in the Middle Ages, the stocks and public torture, now we televise death sentences, violent sports, and the drama of private death. Not really my favourite trait of our race.