Prayers Replace Parties to Mark 2004's End (not what you think)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-World-New-Year.html?oref=login

December 31, 2004
Prayers Replace Parties to Mark 2004's End
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 3:00 p.m. ET

PARIS (AP) -- For Sweden's prime minister, celebrating New Year's after the Asian tsunami felt ``completely wrong.'' Paris, its gay heart heavy with the tragedy, draped black cloth along a favorite haunt for romantic reveling -- the Champs-Elysees. Elsewhere, prayers substituted for parties in the final minutes of 2004.

Even for those far from Asian and African shores where the giant waves killed more than 120,000, the disaster was too overwhelming, too present for a carefree leap into 2005.

``Never has the step into a new year felt heavier,'' said Goeran Persson, Sweden's premier who urged Swedes to light candles in their windows as a vigil. ``We should have celebrated with fireworks and festivities. Now that feels completely wrong.''

Many of the estimated 1 million revelers around the glittering, firework-illuminated harbor in Sydney, Australia, marked a moment of silence for victims

..more at AP

the upcoming ($40M) Coronation of Great and Powerful Fearless Leader

...to see the paucity of coverage on our TV networks about this. When fewer than 3000 people died in 911, the country stopped for A WEEK. No commercials on tv, no soap operas, no regular programming. It was all 911, all the time. There's something like 150,000 dead SO FAR in this disaster, but life seems to go on, and there's not much coverage--we still have loads of time for Scott Peterson and pop celebrities. And the ball will drop, and whoop-de-do! Life goes on in the USA.

It doesn't seem appropriate to me. It tells the rest of the world that the only life we value is American Life. I don't like the fact that we are perceived as aggressive nationalists, because I don't like to think that we are like that. I've always thought we were better as a nation than that.

It's troubling.

It's a media construct; all news is local news. For example, my tiny county-wide paper will have nothing to say about the tsunami unless someone from here, was there. :shrug:

you know, they were people like us, we identified with them. They weren't uh foreign, an ocean away. *sarcasm*

what's to celebrate?

Nothing to look forward to w/ 4 more years of toostupidtobepresident and the GOP in power.

in my husband's Lutheran congregation. Our lives, our very futures, are in the hands of a loving God,
despite the evil crashing around us.

And the earth, I believe, is literally weeping at our greedy materialism. With all those lives to pay for it.

The Spirit prays with us, "in sighs too deep for words."



BTW--Sweden is a Lutheran country. I just found out in the last week that Ann Margaret was born and raised there until the age of six, and was baptised and confirmed a Lutheran Christian.

I had not thought about the difference in coverage since I do not watch much American News anymore...I get most of my info from disparate soerces...the UK...Agence-presse...some AP...have deliberately stayed away from CNN, Faux and Msnbc...what little I have seen seems to have focused on the American aspect..BTW...I am a Floridian, not some foreign
critic...although this tragedy has hit me deep in a place I did not know existed anymore.

Make our leaders look like the selfish greedy pigs they are if they go ahead with a lavish inaugural season?

Perhaps as they were shamed into committing more money for aid, they'll be shamed into scaling back their slap-in-the-face festivities.

And she used to work in a travel office which booked lots of South Asian trips for Swedish tourists. Last night she was explaining to a couple of us from the office that Sweden is a small country, population-wise, and this tragedy in South Asia has really affected people.

But what nightmare for so many countries. I don't want to celebrate, I just want to see the nations begin to recover.

vigil thanking god for releecting bush.

I can't believe it.

Dubya finished off a quart of White Lightening he had hidden away for just such an occassion, attached several sparklers to his bike, clipped some of his favorite "most wanted Iraqis" playing cards onto the spokes and sped around the property shouting "It's the year of the Bush! I'm king of the wooooorld!!", before launching himself face-first into the shrubs.