AP: "Activist's fiery death prompts questions "

[leftchick]

Malachi Ritscher holds up a sign during an antiwar protest in Chicago in this photo from April 2003. On Nov. 3, 2006, Ritscher set up a video camera, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire on expressway off-ramp in downtown Chicago. War protesters are hailing him as a martyr. (AP Photo/Joeff Davis)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061127/ap_on_re_us/anti_war_suicide_6

CHICAGO - Malachi Ritscher envisioned his death as one full of purpose. He carefully planned the details, mailed a copy of his apartment key to a friend, created to-do lists for his family. On his Web site, the 52-year-old experimental musician who'd fought with depression even penned his obituary.

At 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 3 — four days before an election caused a seismic shift in Washington politics — Ritscher, a frequent anti-war protester, stood by an off-ramp in downtown Chicago near a statue of a giant flame, set up a video camera, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire.

Aglow for the crush of morning commuters, his flaming body was supposed to be a call to the nation, a symbol of his rage and discontent with the U.S. war in Iraq.

"Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country," he wrote in his suicide note. "... If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country."

There was only one problem: No one was listening.

[kitkat65]

1. Gee, maybe if he'd been protesting the Britney-Federline breakup, the media

might have ran a little something about it.

[bobbolink]

3. how......compassionate......

:thumbsdown:

[jumpoffdaplanet]

5. But true

Sick but true.


The media are whores who only report at the whim of the adminstration.

[bobbolink]

6. THank you for your deep concern.

The coldness here is sometimes just stunning.

Buy a heart.

[kitkat65]

7. You're missing the point, which WAS admittedly sarcastic but I've already expressed

my horror and sadness over Ritscher's death.

"There was only one problem: No one was listening."

My point was that the media would rather report about bullshit (example: breaking into election news coverage to report the breakup of Britney and K-Fed), than talk about a topic that affects us all (Iraq and the action of one man taking his own life to protest it.)

It's not coldness or lack of compassion, it's complete and utter disgust. Get it?

[uppityperson]

2. I heard you Malachi/Mark

http://www.iheardyoumalachi.org/story.html
http://www.savagesound.com/gallery100.htm
http://www.savagesound.com/gallery99.htm

[bobbolink]

4. The Sunday Denver Post about 1 1/2 years ago ran a front page

article about people being cut off medicaid.

One man they interviewed was afraid of his medication being cut off, which he depended on to survive.

He said if that happened, he would immolate himself on the steps of the state capitol.

Not one word of response to that.

Including, silence from all the "peace" activists.

SILENCE.

How's that for "peace"?

[Fierce]

8. Well, this war protester isn't hailing him as a martyr.

But, you know, thanks, AP.