Shots Across The Bow

It's called reporting

It's called reporting The Aussie paper, The Age, has a columnist by the name of Paul McGeough. I referenced one of his columns earlier, in a discussion about homicide bombers in Palestine. He has another column in the current issue of the Age, chronicling a few more would be martyrs:

Hundreds of Palestinians poured in for condolences and coffee. Members of Shadi Tubasi's family formed a greeting line, handing each new arrival a postcard celebrating the "hero" of the Haifa explosion.
And in a corner, 31-year-old Walid Fayad, unsmiling as he clutches an M16 rifle, explained the unusual absence of sugar in the cardamom coffee that is served in tiny china cups: "Today we drink it bitter, so that we can share the Tubasi family's bitterness for the Israelis."
Fayad waved away the revulsion and horror of the previous afternoon, when a bomb detonated by 18-year-old Tubasi tore apart the lives and bodies of 15 people lunching in a road-side restaurant at the port city of Haifa.

A bit more, then read the rest yourself:

Khaled, a hotel worker, spoke in wonderment of a martyr's encounter at the gates of heaven as someone having their file checked: "There will be blessings for 70 of his family and friends. The 72 virgins are real - their skin is so pale and beautiful that you can see the blood in their veins. If one of these virgins spits in the ocean, the seawater becomes sweet. The martyr is so special he does not feel the pain of being in the grave and all that his family has to do to cleanse his file thoroughly, is to repay his outstanding debts."

Surely, we ask, this view of the Koran should be seen as philosophical? As a parable? But no, there was a chorus of disagreement from a gathering of his friends in the teeming Jabalya refugee camp near Gaza City: "No. This is real . . . this is as it will be," said Khaled, as much for himself as on behalf of younger Palestinians who now talk endlessly of the benefits of death over life in a bombing campaign that has killed more than 200 Israelis in 18 months.

I'm going to quit searching USA Today and read The Age It has better reporting. Besides, they do articles on Steve 'the Crocodile Hunter' Irwin.