OMG - how much more bad can things get?

Just watched the early 10:00 news. Several albino children from Africa just arrived in the US on a rescue mission. Seems albino children born in the country have limbs amputated by 'poacher-types' for black market herbal medicine use.

My heart just went out for these kids who had missing hands and arms!! Who would have thunk it today?!?!? I certainly didn't.

The kids were involved with 'Doctors Without Borders' organization , I believe.

That is terrible but I am not surprised. Glad they were able to get out of country. It's things like this that the majority of people in the U.S. Don't understand about underdeveloped countries. And we whine about our lattes being too hot and the coconut milk containing carreenagen.

I'd never heard of that. Just read an article about it though. Pretty much makes everything short of another tragedy shallow.

This is a fact. I received a huge dose of reality when I was working on my MPH. We had a big focus on global health policy and global health problems in my program. The realities of the world are ugly and many people just don't know how safe and privileged they actually are even when they think they have nothing.

Just look at the tragedies from around the world where one group tried to wipe out another: Bosnia, Germany, United States, Sierra Leone...Humans have come up with some vicious methods of eliminating others.

And right this second, the Afghan parliament is under attack in Kabul. At least nine explosions. The world sucks.

Humans...and ignorance-the most vile/destructive combination. .. you actually expect anything else???

The sad thing is that this ignorance is based on deeply held beliefs about how the world is and how it works. Sadly no different (in principle) to what we all believe at one point or another when we hold on to myth and tradition. Just like early man grew to know that lighting was not angry gods but the result of natural conditions in nature, one can hope that as humanity evolves one day we will be able to phase out these instincts.

We are unaware of many of the horrors that others endure. One does not have to leave the U.S. to see starvation, abuse, neglect, and absolute misery. We still have racism, violence, and ignorance around all of us. Granted (typically) in the U.S. there are fewer instances of this, but these stories are nothing new. I am not surprised often by them, but they still sadden me.

The answer to the OP is "MUCH more bad".

It's terrible. I remember hearing about albino children being killed for medicinal use, but wasn't aware of the dismemberment...to me that seems worse than murder.

Human depravity never ceases to amaze me (although it doesn't surprise me.)