Letter: Interest in world events not as apathetic as portrayed

In the Sun's June 5 edition, syndicated columnist Philip Gailey says Americans don't care about foreign news. He may be right about a degree of provincialism; granted some of our citizenry are busily, or blissfully, unaware -- I know a man who hasn't heard of Viagra.

But over a longer haul, we have cared and still do; otherwise, why the Marshall Plan, CARE, the Peace Corps, UNICEF and on and on. At times, our dialogue with other nations is obfuscated by politics or blocked by realpolitik. Other times, people just don't hear us, what we are really saying, and we are misinterpreted or unappreciated.

We are like Alice, tempted by beautiful things to go through the looking glass, only to find a strange amalgam of Jabberwocks, Tweedledums and Tweedledees, caught up in their own scrambles of self-interest and prickly about how help is administered.

Alice sees that the looking-glass country is "a great huge game of chess that's being played -- all over the world " and if only she could be a queen! In the end, at the party given in her honor, everything comes crashing down, plates, dishes, guests and candles, dwindling in the way of all mischief to petty doll-size.

Do we care? In spite of frustrated idealism, some, a great many of us do, if only once we could keep up a conversation. But, as Alice remarked, how can you talk with a person if they always say the same thing? (And, of course, if politics and media don't provide a looking glass.)

C.M. Kong

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