BBC does a very cool feature that I check out every couple days:
"This Day in Pictures":
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7002597.stm
They're very high quality pictures, and usually highlight all sorts of things going on around the world. What's interesting to me about today's is the major contrast between pictures 5, 6, 7, and 8.
Picture 5: "A Palestinian youth runs past burning rubble during an Israeli army operation in Nablus in the West
Bank."
* This kid looks like he's about my age; maybe a little younger. He looks scared out of his mind, and he's running past a burning car like it's the last thing he's going to see.
Picture 6: "Shia Muslims read the Koran during Ramadan in Karbala, southern Iraq."
Picture 7: "Men scavenge useful items from a polluted canal in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta."
*Guys who are waist (waste?) deep in a filthy canal, and you can see broken pots and pans, dishes, trash, buckets, etc. They're scavenging for "useful items." Probably the same things I can drive to the local Safeway in my air conditioned car and pay for with my credit card.
Picture 8: "Dresses from the 1950s are displayed in the Golden Age of Couture Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London."
--
Picture 8 seems like such a contrast to the previous pictures, and is almost an indictment of Western and Eastern European extravagance. While we're worrying about fancy dresses made in the 1950s, people in Indonesia, Iraq and Israel are struggling every day to stay alive, find shelter, eat, and not get blown up.
Doesn't this bother anyone else? The disparity of wealth and opportunity in the World is really starting to bug me.