SteveWebel [dot] Com

I’m not claiming innocence, I’m as guilty as the next self-centered person, but I am increasingly annoyed by the seemingly total lack of perspective that gets displayed by people caught up in the brain numbing 24 hour news cycle.  The recent “Swine Flu Outbreak” is a great illustration of what I’m talking about.

People in the news are are drooling over themselves as they can’t seem to say the word “pandemic” enough times.  Reminds me of my daughters when they learn a new word that they think sounds funny, they say it over and over and over and you begin to wonder if they even know what it means.

How about some perspective:

In Africa, malaria kills more than 3,000 children a day; in South Africa, HIV/AIDS has taken 2.8 million people and infected 5.3 million more. Every day in India, 1,000 people succumb to tuberculosis. Those are just the big diseases. According to the United Nations, a recent cholera outbreak killed nearly 4,000 Zimbabweans and infected 80,000, while in India diarrheal diseases kill an estimated 600,000 children under 5 every year.

So, when the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that deaths in Mexico from the H1N1 swine flu leapt to nine, you can see why the news didn’t make the front page in Africa or India.

How come CNN isn’t covering these stats in prime time?  How come you pray for your kid not to get the Swine Flu at school, but haven’t even blinked at the thousands killed by malaria in Africa?  Is it because it’s all about ME, ME, ME, ME?  Do you suffer from willful ignorance, thus affecting your perspective on the Swine Flu?

Am I wrong about this?