Why should we bother?

I sometimes wonder why I bother to try and help stop de-forestation and train for this run through the Amazon what a crazy sad world we live in these 3 things caught and annoyed me recently:

1 Outcry in China over hit-and-run toddler left in street
Chinese media and internet users have voiced shock at a hit-and-run incident involving a two-year-old child left injured in the road as passers-by ignored her.
The toddler was hit by a van on in the city of Foshan.
After the van sped off, several pedestrians and vehicles passed the girl without stopping. Several minutes later she was hit by another vehicle.
A rubbish collector finally helped her, but she is said to be seriously hurt.
The incident was captured on surveillance cameras and aired on local media.
'Lacking conscience'
The footage showed the van hitting the little girl, pausing briefly while she was under the vehicle and then driving off, running over her legs.
It then showed about a dozen passers-by, including cyclists, a motorcyclist and a woman and child, noticing the little girl lying injured in the street but walking on.
“Start Quote
There's been so many cases where people have been treated unjustly after doing good things”
Comment on microblogging site Weibo
After she was hit by the second vehicle, a rubbish collector spotted the little girl and moved her to the kerb, then began looking for her mother.
The child, Yue Yue, was taken to hospital for emergency surgery but pronounced brain dead on Sunday, the China Daily reported.
The newspaper said she had wandered off while her mother went to collect some laundry.
The drivers of both vehicles have now been arrested, the newspaper said, but the incident has also triggered outcry among Chinese citizens.
It provoked a storm of comment on microblogging site Weibo.
"Even pigs and dogs are better than they are!" said one angry contributor about the passers-by.
"In China, there's no bottom line for human ethics anymore! China is 'smashing' new records again and again!" commented another.
Others were more reflective. "Now people ignore everything other than money. This society is lacking people with a conscience badly."
Scam fears
Some said they understood the dilemma for the passers-by - that if they helped out they might incur costs or be blamed for the accident.
The China Daily reported incidents in January in which elderly men who fell in the street were left alone because people did not want to get involved.
It cited an earlier case in which a man, Peng Yu, who helped an injured elderly lady to hospital was then found by a court to be liable for some of her medical costs.
Another case - in which an elderly woman believed to have fallen in the road accused a man, Xu Yunhe, who stopped to help her, of hitting her with his car - also attracted considerable attention.
"There's been so many cases where people have been treated unjustly after doing good things," one comment said.
"I am not as rich as Xu Yunhe and Peng Yu are, we are all poor grassroots people," said another. "If we get caught in a scam, this is it. All we can do is to dial 120 (the emergency number)."
2
Chef 'serves own father-in-law to customers'
Victim's remains allegedly cooked in giant pastries in Russian restaurant
A Moscow chef killed his father-in-law and then allegedly served him to customers at his restaurant.
According to police, the 54-year-old chef worked at an unnamed establishment well-known for its chebureki, or large meat-filled pastries: items that could easily disguise the odd hunk of flesh or human limb.
The chef reportedly killed his 82-year-old father-in-law during a drunken brawl. But police are refusing to either confirm or deny a claim by tabloid newspaper Life News that the chef then ran the dead man's body through a meat grinder, used the resultant slurry to fill his chebureki, and then served the pastries to customers for three days before being caught and sent to a psychiatric institution.
What makes this story even more remarkable, observes Elder, is the way Russians are treating it with such nonchalence. "These [sorts of] tales would fill most readers with horror but in Russia they are so commonplace as to barely inspire a raised eyebrow. What's more, the system is such that whistleblowers are actively discouraged from speaking out."

3
Westboro Baptist Church Continues Their Assault on Steve Jobs
Still tweeting from their iPhones...

If you aren’t familiar with Westboro Baptist Church, they are a fringe organization from Topeka, Kansas that travel around the country protesting high profile funerals of fallen American soldiers and celebrities.
The membership is small – 71 members as reported in 2007 – but they are widely known due to their unorthodox and outspoken positions on homosexuality and calls for God to destroy America.
You might know them as the “God Hates Fags” people (that’s the title of their official website), and you might have seen them at funerals and other events holding signs that read, “You’re Going to Hell,” “God Hates America,” “America is Doomed,” and “Thank God For Fallen Soldiers.” I don’t really want to try to summarize their beliefs in a succinct statement, but if I had to, I would say that they espouse that our culture is wicked, and God hates it, and that his punishment for homosexuality and other “Godlessness” is Hell.
Members of the group have even said that their goal with all the protests is to spread “God’s hate.”
Lovely. I’m sure you can see why they are quite the controversial group.
In 2009, they protested the funeral of Michael Jackson. In 2010, they picketed the funeral of Ronnie James Dio. By their count, they have conducted over 30,000 pickets all across the country.
Right after Jobs’ death on Wednesday evening, Westboro top member Margie Phelps tweeted the fact that they planned on protesting his funeral. Here’s what that tweet looked like:

If you look carefully, you’ll see that the tweet to announce Jobs’ funeral protest was sent via iPhone. Of course, this is some pretty incredible irony and quite a healthy dose of hypocrisy thrown in the mix.
When the fact that Phelps had tweeted her anti-Jobs tweet via iPhone spread around the internet, Phelps addressed it on Twitter:
@MargieJPhelps
MargiePhelpshttp://t.co/4Khk7ygv via @manstuffjoe
Rebels mad cuz I used iPhone to tell you Steve Jobs is in hell.God created iPhone for that purpose! 1 day ago via web • powered by @socialditto
After you read that, once the stupid stops burning, check out how other members of Westboro have been addressing the Steve Jobs thing over the past couple of days:
@WBCSteve
sʇǝʌǝ pɹɐıu#SteveJobs was an idolatrous fool and he split hell wide open! You got an app for that? Westboro Baptist Church will picket his funeral. 5 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone • powered by @socialditto
@WBCPhotos
Grace Eliza PhelpsVia @FieldRR “@WBCPhotos you going to take photos at Steve Jobs funeral protest? Then upload pics & tweet from your Mac?” That’s the plan! 18 hours ago via Tweetbot for iPhone • powered by @socialditto
@jaelphelps
Jael PhelpsWestboro Baptist Church thanks God for the cancer that ate Steve Jobs like a moth! “For the moth shall eat them up like a garment” (Isa51:8) 1 day ago via Twitter for iPhone • powered by @socialditto
Before you ask, yes, those were all tweeted from an iPhone.
When we first told you about the Margie Phelps tweet via iPhone story, we received a great amount of comments expressing not only disapproval of Westboro, but disbelief at how they would be allowed to do this. The answer is pretty simple – the Supreme Court of the United States has upheld their right to protest. An 8-1 decision in a case involving Westboro and the picketing of a military funeral said that their speech was protected under the First Amendment. They can’t be denied that right because their speech is unpopular and outrageous.
Dissenters of that opinion said that the families of the fallen soldiers in these cases are being attacked by Westboro, verbally, in order to draw attention. They claim that free speech rights are not a license for vicious verbal attacks.
On their blog, Westboro has a post saying “Thank GOD! Steve Jobs is Dead.” They then modify a biblical passage to suit their needs and proclaim that Jobs played a part in gay marriage, which will bring civilization down –
Genesis 6:4 There were giants (in business/industry) in the earth in those days…the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
Those captains of business/industry in Noah’s day did what Jobs and his cohorts do TODAY: turn the country over to the fags!
Fag marriage will bring your destruction! Jobs is responsible!
Of course this is nonsensical bullshit. Most of us can agree on that. And yes, some say that talking about Westboro only legitimizes their ridiculous message.
While it’s true that “media whores” isn’t a strong enough description of WBC, and they feast on the attention, they obviously have an impact on the national dialogue. Just look at all the internet chatter concerning their Steve Jobs statements over the last 2 days.
For such a small group, they have been able to affect the lives of many military families and draw the attention of millions of people. Should their ability to picket the funerals of fallen soldiers and celebs like Steve Jobs be limited? Can free speech go too far, and if so, does their speech apply? Or is there something quintessentially American in the fact that they are allowed to demonstrate, no matter how vile the material happens to be
Westside Baptist is not a Christian organization. Christianity believes in the Bible which in the words of Jesus indicates “Judge not lest ye be judged” and “Judge ye righteousness alone”.