Malachi Ritscher?

Question

June 11, 1963 The self-immolation of Mahayana Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức outside the Cambodian Embassy in Saigon gets massive amounts of media coverage and public sympathy around the world. It is described as one of the most moving images of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjpAh4rqTv4

November 3, 2006 on the Kennedy Expressway in downtown Chicago Mark David Ritscher videotapes his own self immolation in protest of the Iraq war. It goes largely unreported by all but a few independent media outlets. No one so much as pulls over to watch. The videotape has not been released to the public.

Why?

Answer 1

Newspaper account:

Ritscher's self-immolation went unremarked by the media for nearly a week.[3] It was condemned by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper, who thought that his suicide was a pointless act. "With all great respect, if he thought setting himself on fire and ending his life in Chicago would change anyone's mind about the war in Iraq, his last gesture on this planet was his saddest and his most futile."[

I think most people view suicide as an act committed by a person who is mentally unstable.  Perhaps the media declined to give it wider coverage for the same reason. Most people don't believe that it is an act committed by a sane person.

The war in Iraq will come to end act through the actions of the living.