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Thanks for the ping, Anna. I agree with you that Putin's remarks are disturbing. But they are in keeping with the world's reaction to this tragedy. This entire article should be on the front page of every newspaper.

I, for one, am more disturbed about what occurred in Russia last week than I can recall being upset about anything since 9/11/01. And it’s not just the terrorism, but the international media coverage of it.

I taught our adult Sunday school class at church this morning. Early on in the lesson I made reference to the tragedy at Beslan, simply because it helped to drive home the point of the lesson.

There were maybe forty people in the class and, from the discussion that ensued, it was apparent that almost all of them were pretty much in the dark about the details of what occurred in Russia last Thursday and Friday.

These are intelligent citizens of ‘middle America’ – and Christians, to boot. Good people. They aren’t tuned into FoxNews eight hours a day, but I would venture to guess that they listen to as much news as the average American – probably more.

Only eight or ten people (roughly one quarter of those in the room) were aware that 340+ people were killed in the incident, half of them young children. No one was aware that some of the murdered children were shot in the back as they attempted to escape. Only one person was aware that very few of the children were allowed to go to the bathroom, most were not provided water, and some were reduced to urinating in cups and bottles, and then drinking their own urine, or pouring it on themselves to lessen the effects of the sweltering heat. No one was aware that a man was murdered in front of a group of children, after which they were told, ‘This will happen to you if you don’t obey us.’ No one was aware that some of the barbarians have been identified as members of the Wahhabi sect of Islam, and that many of the hostages were ordered to pray to Allah. Just a handful knew that many of the victims were Christian. Most of them knew that many of the hundreds of survivors will be maimed for life.

Why is this? Why are the important facts (the number of children involved, direct connections with radical Islam, the sadistic torment that was visited on the victims before their death or rescue … ) about this tragedy not being hammered home by the mainstream media?

Last night I watched about two hour of FoxNews (we report … you decide) while preparing this morning’s Sunday school lesson. What I saw and heard was very unsettling. In the two hours time (now mind you, this news report was occurring a mere twenty-four hours after the ‘resolution’ of the crisis in Russia) of news coverage, I saw maybe a grand total of five minutes coverage of the massacre in Russia – and that five minutes contained virtually no references to any of the facts mentioned above.

Other than occasional mention of President Clinton’s upcoming heart surgery, the remaining hour and fifty-five minutes was spent interviewing Geraldo Rivera and various other Fox correspondents, attired in rain gear, standing out in the rain and wind, and prognosticating about how hard hurricane Frances was going to hit Florida at any moment. These reporters were frantic -- in a look-at-me, aren’t-I-brave-standing-out-here-in-the-wind-and-rain? kind of way (maybe they should issue purple hearts for hurricane reporting). They would point to the palm trees swaying behind them, or the boats being tossed about in the harbor, occasionally pick up a severed tree branch that had been ripped from a nearby tree, complain about the pounding rain and ferocious (if I hear that word one more time, I think I will lose it) winds that were battering them, and paint a grim picture about what was imminently going to happen to the area around them.

The correspondents’ (supposedly) conspicuous bravery, and humanitarian kindergarten-level advice and warnings (stay indoors, or find a nearby shelter, be aware that strong rain and winds can cause significant damage …) that were being dished out, for hours on end, gave the term overkill new meaning.

I’m not in any way minimizing the personal tragedy that many in Florida will have to endure as a result of the devastation caused by Frances. But let’s put things in perspective here.

Hurricane Frances is an act of nature – and an act of nature for which the residents of coastal Florida must always be as prepared as they are able. Considering modern meteorological advances, we receive fair warning that such natural catastrophes are approaching. And, although material losses are usually significant (a sad fact in itself), very few lives are lost. And very few people receive life-long emotional scars as a result of the tragedy.

On a scale of human heartbreak, what occurred in Russia just a few days ago eclipses any havoc that Frances may wreak on the lives that she touches.

More than three hundred innocent people (half of them young children) had no advanced warning that, on the very first day of the school year, their innocent lives would be infiltrated, suddenly and violently, by a handful of evil, sadistic men bent on mindlessly torturing, and eventually killing, hundreds of them. Men who were joyful at the prospect of instilling instantaneous, paralyzing fear in the hearts of young children. Men whose barbaric behaviors, in some instances, forced young children to decide to attempt to escape rather than continue to wonder what their captors’ next sadistic cruelty would entail. Men who shot those children who attempted to escape in the back.

More than a thousand innocent people in that school building had no warning of the tragedy that was to occur. They endured humiliating, traumatizing torment for what must have seemed a seventy-two hour eternity. More than three hundred of them (most of them children) will not live to tell about it.

We need to hear their stories. We need to be told, over and over again, that at least a segment of their captors was aligned with the radical Islam fanaticism that threatens not only school houses in Russia, but school houses, airports, train stations, waterworks, public utilities, football stadiums, small towns, and large metropolitan areas, all over the world.

What happened in Russia last week will serve as a foretaste of things to come unless the rest of the world connects-the-dots and looks beyond our noses. The media, now interminably focused on hurricanes and heart bypasses, are obscuring the dots and attempting to take our eyes off the horizon.

I learned, once again, at church this morning that, unless good people demand to know the truth, and demand that our leadership and our media get their priorities in order, the madmen of this world are going to continue to catch us off-guard, and focused on bread and circuses, while they lie in ambush, waiting to prey on their next victims.

Many of those killed in Russia just two days ago were Christians. All of those daily killed in Israel by Palestinian terrorists are Jews. The bloodthirst of radical Islam will not be satisfied until such atrocities bring Christianity, Judaism, and all liberty-loving people to their knees at the feet of Allah. And we help them in their evil crusade by minimizing many of those atrocities by choosing to occupy ourselves with disasters that are somehow easier to face.

~ joanie