And nobody cried.

A billion people died on the news tonight
But not so many cried at the terrible sight

Well mama said, "It's just make believe
You can't believe everything you see
So baby close your eyes to the lullabyes
On the news tonight"

--Jack Johnson "The News"

Check your Facebook news feed, and I am sure you will find that your social-activist friends share posts about Ferguson, racial tensions, etc. And they should--this is the main and pressing US issue right now.

A few people post about Iraq.

Nobody posts about Ebola right now, unless they are posting to share a hyped fear for themselves.

Why? Because those other people over there don't matter to the Facebook population.

As a Communications major, I have been taught that good news is relevant and urgent. Something that is merely a continuation of a crisis thousands of miles away, like Syria, does not appeal to the sensationalist desires in the US. I realize that sometimes we can't do things about the rest of the world, but I wonder why one life in this country garners more attention than 190,000 elsewhere.

I'm not saying that the one life doesn't matter, but I don't see why it should matter more than others elsewhere.

I think part of the issue is that the US relies on too much sensationalism. We watch gruesome movies, and the violence feels removed from us. So, we don't react when we read that things are blowing up elsewhere--literally.

Then, when something like Ebola erupts, we panic for our own safety and worry about our own country. Minds flash to movies like Contagion, but our worries about the more that 1,200 deaths are very minor.

It is, in some ways, right for us to worry about ourselves. However, we need to make sure that we don't put more value on our own lives than those elsewhere. Yes, we have race problems in the US. The Yazidis do as well, after thousands of years of persecution. Yes, we have disease and death. The rest of the world does, as well.

Living in a concern cocoon for ourselves only serves to numb the impact of the rest of the world.

It's time that we wake up and reach out to all members of our global community. They are also at our door, asking for help.