How many civilians have died around the world...?

[porphyrian]

...while we've been wasting media attention on a vegetable and a Pope? Are we to believe that they are more important than, say, a man who died trying to protect his family from armed militants in Africa? Or maybe more important than any of the babies who starved to death in the last week in the Ukraine? How about the number of soldiers dead in Iraq? I'm so fucking sick of the value of people's lives being determined by how readily they can be used to manipulate public opinion, and by the amount of time spent by people not on the media's payroll spreading this toxic distraction.