Malachi Ritscher. Photo: Joeff Davis/APBefore burning himself to death, Malachi Ritscher wrote in a suicide note that his fellow Americans had become "more concerned with sports on television and ring-tones on cellphones than the future of the world".
He didn't realise how prophetic his words would turn out to be. His self-immolation on Chicago's Kennedy expressway was intended as a high-profile anti-war protest that could not be ignored. He set up a sign saying "Thou shalt not kill" and he explained on his website: "If I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world."
But at the time of his gruesome protest, which occurred on November 3, no one (with the odd exception) paid much attention to the story.
This media "blackout" has generated a slew of blog comment and criticism, with bloggers latching on to it as proof of the media's fixation on the "trivial, mundane or the painfully obvious", as Words Matter put it.
A post on Indymedia by Jennifer Diaz says the lack of coverage is a sign of how "the once objective news media have become politicized conglomerates either owned by or cozy with the powers that they are supposed to be watchdogging".
This being America, there are also some on the right urging people to stop "lionising" Ritscher, while others dismiss him as "delusional" because he regretted not having killed Donald Rumsfeld when he had the chance.
Now, more than three weeks after Ritscher's death, the media are picking up the story. They may have ignored the original anti-war protest, but not the anti-media protest that followed it.
