For shame!

I am highly disappointed to find out that the government of Myanmar is accepting U.S. aid in any way, shape or form.

It was music to my ears, and good music too, when I read last week that they were not doing so. (Or maybe I just heard it. I don't really know.) Finally, I thought to myself, here is a government of what Moe Szyslak once so brilliantly called "one of them loser countries" that is not whining about this and demanding that. Give us food, buy us mosquito nets and don't bomb us are just some of the cries that make me sick to my stomach. They might be reasonable on some level, but I am just so tired of hearing them that I have to wonder, do these people have no sense of self-reliance? I mean, I don't blame them for thinking they are losers, as such is an accurate assessment of their situation, but at least have enough shame and decency to pretend that your life is worth living.

The government of Myanmar had an opportunity to send a very clear that message to both their people and the rest of the world that the losers once known as the Burmese suck and that a natural disaster should not provoke any concern that does not otherwise exist. But now they are even admitting to getting assistance from outside the country (New York Times, May 14). What's next? Cadillacs and t-bones?

I wish there was an easy answer to this predicament as the truth is we Americans really are to blame. After the cyclone, or whatever it was, hit last week, our cable news networks were all too eager to make this the second largest story in the world without any regard to how doing so might prevent a talking head from repeating for the ninth time an opinion about the U.S. presidential election that everybody has already heard expressed by 50 other people.

Is that the kind of America you want to live in?