Pacific Views

Hero Award

I've been meaning to link to this story because it concerns a couple of the best of our blogging community. Joan Ryan of the San Francisco Chronicle was reflecting on what makes the news and how so often it is the aberrant item that gets reported. Despite this there are still people who do incredible things and do so without much notice.

News is news because it's bad
But unsung heroes pervade daily life

I'll think of Patricia Kniesler and Michael White, she in Benicia, he in Stone Mountain, Ga., who, without ever meeting in person and while juggling full-time jobs, created a Web site that provides what many consider the most accurate, up-to-date and comprehensive source for death and casualty tolls in Iraq (www.lunaville.com).

...All of us walk around with a sack of our own grief and disappointments, yet we continue to move forward, our eyes open to the others around us, more times than not willing to do what needs doing. It's tempting to talk about what a violent, horrible, greedy, base world we live in. Some of it is, absolutely.

But it is mostly a world in which heroism lives next door. The everyday gestures of courage and kindness are a kind of hope, something that rests on you lightly, so familiar and comfortable that you can forget sometimes that it's there.

I've been so impressed with Pat and Michael and the work they do day in and day out to remember and give honor to the casualties of Bush's ugly war. It is an incredibly hard thing to do: to get up every day knowing you will spend time looking at those who paid for Bush's lies. I don't how they do it, but I do know that I respect their commitment and their dedication.

BTW: Michael points out that the URL for the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count should be www.icasualties.org/oif.

Posted by Mary at January 19, 2005 11:09 PM | Activism | Technorati links |