While watching the carnage wrought by the tsunamis around the Indian Ocean today on CNN, I was struck by a journalist’s remark that because it was high tourist season for Europeans, the tidal waves were “especially a tragedy.” Now I know that tragedy hits closest to home, but the implication I got was that it would be less of a tragedy if there were no European tourists there.

I suppose close-text reading of newscasts can reveal quite a bit…