the brilliantly leaping gazelle

This is only going to short post, in part because I’m so furious and in part because if it were going to be any longer, then it would require time-consuming research and time is not my friend right now.

In the Europe of 2023, an independent sovereign nation has been invaded by its much larger neighbour, one that is not only by a considerable margin the biggest military power on the continent. But one that is under the control of a leader also who is easily characterised as a ‘path this or a ‘list that. However, from an alternative point of view, one might reasonably deduce that he might have looked at 20th Century European history and arrived at a wholly rational decision, namely that the other European powers would talk a good talk, but actually do nothing.

For Austria in 1938, see Crimea in 2014. Both were justified on totally self-serving fabrications and both were used to gauge the response it would provoke. Angry words at The League of Nations in 1938 and the same angry words at the United Nations 2014 on both occasions, but both about as much use as a marzipan dildo. Meanwhile, whilst aggressor keeps on aggressing, the European leaders give ever more pitiful reasons to explain away why they must do nothing. What kind of fools are they, spineless or just scared. ‘All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’, goes the old saying. The updated 2023 iteration is ‘Evil triumphs when there are not enough good people to stop them.’

Today is June 6th, 2023.

I’m not a parent myself so I can’t even begin to imagine the overwhelming sense of dread one feels when one’s child goes missing. Most of those missing children are thankfully found, however that still leaves parents whose children are never found with a loss that is so enormous it defies description.

But this post isn’t about that. Its about those parents whose child is missing, not only from their lives, but also in the media. Its about the scar in those parents lives that is ripped open anew, when some other theory that might lead to a clue about Madeline McCann is reported in the media, or a new computer generated image is produced of Ben Needham, showing how the two year old toddler who went missing in 1991 might look now. The media landscape is growing both more fickle and rapacious with every news cycle, it needs newness to sate it, so when a child goes missing, initially there’s interest. But it soon passes as more newsie news pushes it further and further away from editors attention.

How must they feel? Is their torment the price they must pay for not having as photogenic a child as the media demands? If no heart-wrenchingly cute photo exists, how, in this increasingly online world, are they to be kept alive by the media? Since Madeline McCann’s disappearance in 2007, 1.5 million UK children have gone missing. It could be much much more. These people think so. But between 70,000 and 120,00 children every year, of whom roughly 80% are found within 24 hours. Which still leaves an unbelievably large amount of anguished parents, unanswered questions and lives not lived. And forgotten by the media.

One can’t, of course, lay all of the blame solely on the media, tempting as it is to do. Editors are aware of which stories their readers are drawn to, what will keep them clicking, and the more they click, the more content is produced to keep them clicking. So, you, yes you, are all to blame as well, complicit in keeping other peoples misery alive, but not me, because I don’t click on those stories.