.backstage melancholic hey ok. the world isn't all mere gloom and doom as reflected in my prior posts. well, it's just that i'm of the opinion that popular press, being popular press, tends to indulge in broad but selective reporting, systematically discounting the extent of the bad karma abound. and popular press, in fulfilling its role as ubiquitous friendly information provider to the proletariat, also inductively sets most the agenda of what is discussed amongst the masses and hence, through the incredible democratic apparatus, what is of concern to politicians and their all-important ratings. correspondents thrive on sudden shifts (drama), not ebbs nor status quos (no drama). the problem is that not everything of real value is exciting as say, the psycadelic shape-shifting chameleon that is american foreign policy, or kim jong il and his totally out-of-this-world haircut. As a result the coverage, though geographically diverse, is but detailed information about peaks, troughs and notable steep gradients, with much of the baseflow discounted. prolonged ethnic strife, shortage of food, chronic disease in africa and the third-world, social wastage elsewhere, are all very much part of reality. but since they have been reported before and not much has changed since, then we shall keep it in the dog-eared 'others' folio till, if ever, the fireworks begin. it's akin to sitting on death row in california, when it happens you die, au reviour dude, if not you just waste away bit by bit, statistic by statistic, in line, unseen and forgotten. unlike death row though, the under-current of vice and suffering does not waste away, rather it grows. and grows. slowly but with gathering destructive potential. it is a practice of great folly to ignore or give mere token mention to these baseflows, in a bid to cover even more of what i term 'big bang happenings' - obvious peaks, troughs and steep in-betweens, involving events that have already occured, or will occur in the inelastic short term, of which a relatively little can be done. not that i'm suggesting that we abandon these, only that there is much that can be done to seek a better balance incorporating a greater forward perspective, searching and illuminating ticking time bombs, obvious and not so obvious, and profiling their projected adverse consequences. a self-confessed backstage melancholic, i brood in gloom and doom in a bid to add my weight, little as it may be, to the end of the scale that tips toward greater reflection and caution. not that this is the panacea toward eliminating the evils of the world. perfect information we will never possess. but greater and more relevant information will go a long way to preempting and providing relief to this world's ills.