LaurieWrites: Sometimes (even pretty) people jump out of windows because they're sad.

The footage of the Russian supermodel who jumped to her death from a ninth-floor apartment in the NYC financial district was quite the news bit yesterday. And Fox News, in all its classy goodness, opted to show the footage of her body, obtained from a person ~~who I hope has significant road rash from hitting the pavement but that's wishful thinking~~ with a video camera who shot it from underneath a car.

I can't find the links now, because the one that was sent to me is dead. It was disappointing for the casual voyeur, really. The sheet was mostly covering her, and it was windy in New York so all you could really see was the bruised left side of her face and eyes that were - surprise - closed. I watched it a couple of times, working through my discomfort, to try to determine what the value was - to see, in effect, what there was to see.

Her name was Ruslana Korshunova. She was 21. She is dead.

That's all that anyone needs to know, really, if they need to know anything at all.

The Fox footage I saw gave credence to my view that we're approaching Armageddon, at least in terms of what's accepted as "media."

I could not determine which of the people involved in the Geraldo conversation were more reprehensible. The man who vaguely resembled Albert Einstein who said "After all she is not from this country? She might be isolated?" I can understand that a young woman far from home would feel disconnected, but New York is full of people from all over the world in equally lonely situations. It is a place where people go from everywhere, and it seems ridiculous and somehow patronizing to equate "foreignness" with the urge to plunge from a window. Or the woman in the purple who postulated that because she was so beautiful she surely wouldn't have ended her life so violently and someone must have pushed her? And that she must have, in addition, been completely high on drugs?

Because, right, if you're beautiful and depressed, clearly the need to preserve the appearance of your body and face must trump despair that seems worse than the pain of hitting the concrete full force, hundreds of feet down. You must always keep the outside at the front of the line.

A distant cousin of mine jumped from a building in DC and died a few years ago because he was just, apparently...really sad. Have you noticed that this life is hard? And that some people have days where it being over seems preferable to dealing with whatever shit is shoveled their way? It's not a real stretch sometimes, folks. And it's is sad to see this group of jerks jump all over a person who just died yesterday not even considering that depression can sink in deep and leave you less than concerned with your appearance.

Who knew about this young woman before yesterday? Did anyone, besides the people in her immediate sphere (if they did), see her or know her as anyone other than a page in a magazine? Now that she took the drastic step of plunging out of the window of a high-rise building to her death, she's everyone's business, and everyone with a microphone claims to know why she did it.

I think we have big problems. And as much as stories like this make me ashamed of the media outlets who cover them, they make me all the more determined to be a small part of the solution.