Heat Indices
Bombs go off right across the world from where I live, among a people who look like me. This is news because they are not at war — or at least, not very much — & because they look just like me. Meanwhile in America we are blowing up mountains & burning their black hearts to keep cool. Meanwhile in America we are setting off three & a half million pounds of explosives every day in this undeclared war against ourselves. This is not news because it happens every day & is therefore nothing new; because there is no easy- to-tar enemy except perhaps for the black-hearted mountains; & because the people who die from it die slowly & unspectacularly, & are too often guilty of being poor. Meanwhile in America it is hot & getting hotter, & this is news because it keeps us indoors, glued to the news or at least to the sweat- sticky couch. Meanwhile in America the news anchors make a show of indignation at the sun, righteous & well-coiffed as fallen angels, & never speculate about why we might really be so hot, never mention that we are blowing up mountains & burning their black hearts to keep cool.
I don’t mean to minimize the horror of the events in Norway, which now seem actually to be more about the massacre on the island than the initial bomb blasts. Every violent death, especially the death of a child, is a tragedy regardless of where in the world it happens — even schoolchildren in Appalachia who get brain tumors from having the misfortune of living too close to coal processing plants.