[ExI] [wta-talk] LA Times: Unlimited space for untold sorrow

[Emlyn]

On 06/02/2008, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 06/02/2008, PJ Manney <pjmanney at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Feb 5, 2008 4:06 PM, Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Really, if we are going to freak out about anything, it should be
> > > heart disease & cancer. If you want to publicise anything, forget
> > > homicides, put the heart disease and cancer stats on the telly each
> > > night. "The heart disease death toll so far this holiday season has
> > > climbed to 40,000 across the United States, an improvement on the same
> > > month last year." [4] But then, who'd want to watch that? Horrible.
> >
> > My point was not at all about risk assessment.  We know human
> > generally stink at it and neurologically, they can't help but stink.
> > My point was about coming to grips with the realities of our
> > communities: how they succeed, how they fail and gaining the empathy
> > to, at a minimum, appreciate the victims' reality, or if possible, do
> > something about it.  And you can only do that with accurate
> > information.  The point of The Homicide Report is to provide missing
> > information -- who are ALL the people murdered daily in LA County --
> > and the stories behind their deaths.
> >
>
> I was replying to Amara's post really, not to your original one. I
> just went and read the original articles and looked at the Homicide
> Report - omfg. That's harrowing!
>
> Conceptually, it's an excellent idea.
>
> "This site flies in the face of the economics of attention". We need
> more of this!
>
> --
> Emlyn

Oooh, and btw, 1000 homicides per year in LA County? Some data I
scratched up, admittedly old (1994, [1]) says that there were 332
homicides in Australia that year, total. wtf? There are about 10
million people in LA County now; in 1994, there were at least 16
million in Australia (iirc, counting on fingers & toes). What is going
on over there?

[1] Violent Deaths and Firearms in Australia Data and Trends,
Satyanshu Mukherjee & Carlos Carcach
(http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/rpp/04/RPP04.pdf)

-- 
Emlyn

http://emlynoregan.com