Walmart employee trampled to death.

People in the middle east & farther afield are dying to bombings etc "all the time", so people in the west have become bored of hearing about it.

That's why this gets more attention, at least in my opinion.

ross's point is probably pretty accurate. it's not every day you hear this type of news. throw on top of that that most Americans would get mumbai and uruguay confused on a map.

it also hits close to home because how many of us go shopping on black friday, compared the amount of us that visit mosques. we tend to ignore what's not familiar to us. it's disheartening.

I think one of the reasons people are so enthralled by this is that most of the people in that Walmart were probably just like them. Hell, I almost went out yesterday because none of my jeans fit me and I need new ones. I mean I wouldn't have been going to some Walmart in Long Island, but still. I don't think the majority of people reading about suicide bombings and school shootings think "wow, that could be me with that bomb/gun, isn't that scary?" but I think some people are looking at themselves in the shoes of this crowd of people, and that's a really sobering thought.

That's a good point, I hadn't thought of it like that. But on the flip side of that argument, I could have just as easily been that Wal-Mart employee or been staying in a hotel in Mumbai.

Yeah, I agree, and I think of myself in those situations too sometimes when I read the news. I just think some things automatically hit closer to home with people based on their personal experience.

I do think people should look beyond their initial gut reactions, but it's still understandable that things like this are viewed as being particularly disgusting.

Its a said realization of our society, when we see that things like going to target at 6 Am to save on the tons of comercilized christmas crap your about to purchese or walmart, or whatever, is more important on your to-do list than things like being aware of political issues, world issues, Stuff that hits close to home and makes a big impact on the rest of the world, instead of ecocentric stuff liek that story,
Sad,

and the corporations are sitting in their. corporations, acting all corporation'ey

I hadn't mentioned Mumbai because it's literally half the world away and its hard for me to envision that happening, but walmart is everywhere and I see it everyday and I see overthetop consumers enough for this to trigger something i me.

That and Mumbai seriously scares me to the point I didn't want to think about it. Just the idea that a couple people could so easily take high powered weapons and start shooting people to shoot them. It's so scary because it could happen anywhere and anytime.

Also, this happened over shopping. I mean, terrorist related issues are complex, heated, and scary to think about. I'm surprised there isn't a thread over the Mumbai killings already, but I feel like I was hit almost equally hard over this Walmart thing because of the banality of the death, of the superficiality of it. And because it happened here, it seems to reflect something about our society that the Mumbai attacks don't, at least not as directly.