Thursday, September 02, 2004

NPR : Up The Creek Without A Paddle

Why do I torture myself every morning by listening to NPR? This morning, buried till the end of their newscast was an "update" on what they called the "Russian school hostage crisis". If you didn't know the story, the headline would make you think it was a Russian Columbine. Not one iota of new information from yesterday. The Chechen Islamic Extremists are called "Chechen militants". And bizarrely, NPR states that "no one is certain what the militants are asking for." Of course, they make clear that the "children are being treated well, so far" (this supposedly from phone calls from hostages inside to their parents); while at the same time that no food or drink or medicine has been allowed to be delivered. Can you imagine a toddler who has had no food for 30+ hours? Or one with asthma, not able to take his daily medicine? GIVE ME A BREAK. These "militant" has said repeatedly what they want. They have mined the lawn with explosives; they have mined the auditorium where the hostages are with explosives (BTW, NPR didn't bother to mention these two irrelevant facts--after all, they wouldn't want to be "biased" against these Islamic thugs). Did they mention that the "militant" are gleefully holding up small children to the windows, just in case there are some military snipers outside? Or, that parents are outside weeping with anxiety about their children? No. Just that the "militants" were treating the kids ok.

I get more information in one stroke of my keypad than NPR appears capable of giving. If you want to find out what's going on, go here; or here. The former link is getting regular updates from Russian news media (something I guess is too difficult for the NPR folks). The latter gives a good summary so far. Did I mention that 8 people --including children--have so far been killed? NPR didn't mention it either.

We pay for this with our tax money????

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