Unfinished Business

On page four of our local newspaper:

Car bomb kills 30 at market outside Baghdad.
Baghdad, Iraq (AP) - Four days after al-Qaida in Iraq declared all-out war on the country's Shiite majority, more than 250 people have been killed, 30 of them in a massive car bombing Saturday outside a produce market in a poor Shiite suburb east of Baghdad.
In all, at least 52 people were killed or found dead throughout the country Saturday, victims of mounting sectarian killings promised by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of the terrorist organization and a moving force behind the Sunni-dominated insurgency.

On page one of the same newspaper, discussing what to do with animals during a hurricane emergency:

"I'm thinking that, perhaps, there are a lot of folks here that are attached to their animals. We're not going to leave them," he said of the pets......"It's all animals. And it's not just furry friends. It's scaly friends, feathered friends..."

So there you have 21st Century America. A nation that we invaded and invested, that we cannot protect against its own marauders, that suffers casualties on the order of the London terrorist attacks every day, is consigned to page four while concern for our "scaly, feathered" friends makes it to the top of page one.

Strange.