Short-Fused Flight Attendant VS Child Slave

I came downstairs this morning to find the news on. A reporter was standing outside the home of Steven Slater, a flight attendant who opened the emergency door on a plane and slid down the chute after a dispute with a passenger. I first heard the story last night, laughed a little at the idea and then moved on. The fact that a reporter was camped outside Slater’s apartment waiting for him to make an appearance was disturbing enough, but it didn’t stop there. After following Slater through his parking garage and into an elevator to grab a few one liners from him, the story moved back to the network’s New York studio where they had a phone interview with a passenger who had briefly interacted with Slater at the beginning of the flight. THEN, they went live in the studio in an interview with his ex-wife. I turned it off, but not before hearing that the other big story was about Lindsay Lohan’s jail-time.

In other news…over 1,600 people have died in floods in Pakistan and millions are without food, water, and shelter. An estimated 14 million have been affected (thank you BBC news). Over 1,100 people are dead after landslides destroyed parts of northwestern China. According to the International Justice Mission (http://www.ijm.org/ourwork/injusticetoday), “More children, women and men are held in slavery right now than over the course of the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade….Trafficking in humans generates profits in excess of 12 billion dollars a year for those who, by force and deception, sell human lives into slavery and sexual bondage. Nearly 2 million children are exploited in the commercial sex industry.” Around the world, nearly 16,000 children die of hunger daily.

Where is that news? I’m sure that somewhere over the course of the morning someone mentioned the floods in Pakistan, but somehow that doesn’t seem to be enough. On primetime TV, there is a 30-minute slot for “serious news” (and even then, last night’s still contained stories about Slater). This slot is followed by an hour of game shows or celebrity gossip, leading into sitcoms and dramas. Finally we round out the evening with local news and late night shows.

Who is to blame? I would love to shake my finger at the media and demand that they report more about what’s going on in the world, but I really need to turn that finger back around to myself. If we didn’t provide such a high demand for that kind of “news”, we would be getting a different product.

Some may argue…”we need to talk about the light stuff because life is tough enough.” I can understand and agree with that sentiment to an extent, but we need some balance and perspective. I have heard others say, “well there will be always be hunger, poverty, and natural disasters. We can’t stop that.” Agreed. But just because we can’t completely solve the problem, should we give up responding all together?

What if we rearranged our priorities? What if we sought out information and demanded to know more about what is happening in our world? What if we spent less time being filled up on entertainment and more time responding to the world’s suffering? What if we argued a little less about which political party is more correct and spent more time asking our politicians to take action in injustice? What if we heard about floods in Pakistan and were so moved that we made sacrifices in order to help?

Many people are calling Steven Slater a “hero”. Really? I realize that people are fed-up with their jobs and he did what they all wanted to do, but a hero? It’s time to adopt new heroes and I would like to nominate some candidates.

• The IJM caseworkers working relentlessly to set people free from slavery
• The people bringing food to starving children (and adults)
• The person sitting behind their computer sending money to provide aid for those suffering

Taking action…We all lead busy lives and few of us are in a place to move across the ocean and be the hands that deliver the food/medicine or walk girls out of brothels (see www.IJM.org). However, we live in a country of abundance – even in our toughest times. I know that money is tight and it can be hard to imagine spending anything extra, so instead, imagine what you could go without. What little (or big) sacrifices can we all be making to provide help where there is a need? Check out the websites below and take action.

www.ijm.org
www.worldvision.org
www.thehungersite.com

If you know of other resources like these, please post them!