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Maybe you've wondered why some dead women get more media play than others. Maybe the media just loves dead white women who die in sordid sexual circumstances, slain by jealous lovers or sex-crazed foreigners. After all, the mainstream media motto is "If it bleeds it leads," meaning the lead story will always be bloody mayhem--earthquakes, airplane crashes, suicide bombings or best of all, sex-related slayings involving beautiful white women.

The other night "Frontline" analyzed the O.J. Simpson verdict. A few of the folks interviewed said the reason the case was so sensational wasn't about justice but about a dead white woman allegedly slain by a famous black athlete, O.J. Simpson. A couple of black women said that if the victim hadn't been a beautiful, white, photogenic blonde (and her Jewish lover), allegedly killed by a jealous black athlete, nobody would've given a damn.

True. The same thing happened more recently when a pretty white woman, Natalee Holloway, was abducted and killed on the island of Aruba a few months ago. The mainstream media played the enthusiastic part of Columbo for what seemed like months. FOX TV newswoman Rita Cosby went to Aruba to sniff out more details. Nothing like sex and a dead white woman to keep the mainstream media panting like a dog. But quite a few folks thought the Natalee Holloway media circus seemed way out of proportion to the crime.

"Reyna Gabriella Alvaeado-Carrera. Have you ever heard of her?" wrote blogger GBD. "Reyna is a 13 year-old Hispanic girl who is believed to have been abducted by a stranger in Norcross, Georgia. She was abducted just a few weeks before Holloway. A Google search on her name yields a grand total of 6 results . . . 'Natalee Holloway' turns up 276,000 results." (now 645,000)

The same media circus over a dead white woman occurred recently with the murder of beautiful Taylor Behl. Another gruesome murder and the mainstream media on the scent like a rabid dog. Sex and abduction and murder. All the news stations carried footage from the crime scene. Over and over again. Beautiful White Woman Murdered In SEX-Related Slaying.

Simpson, Holloway and Behl. And before that the shocking, sensational, sex-related murder of a beautiful, white American woman (and her baby) by her husband in California. Seems Scott Peterson was having an illicit sexual affair. Like the other cases, the US media had a field day with the Laci Peterson investigation. Some people even called it the "Case of the Century," and the investigation went on for months.

Surprisingly, one beautiful, white, American woman murdered by a madman went mostly unreported by our watchdog mainstream media. Why? Not because she wasn't as beautiful and full of life as Taylor Behl. Not because she wasn't as blonde and attractive as Natalee Holloway (indeed, she resembled Holloway). Not because she wasn't murdered in a foreign land, like Holloway. Then why didn't the mainstream media jump all over the story like a pack of crazed jackals?

Maybe because Rachel Corrie got killed--crushed to death--by an Israeli soldier representing the power of the state. The death of Corrie was an embarrassment to the cozy relationship of the US and Israel governments and thus the complicit mainstream media mostly ignored it. With a war with Iraq coming, more sensational news stories captivated the media.

Unlike Simpson, Holloway and Behl, Corrie was murdered by one state and ignored by another. Instead of scandalous sex, Corrie got killed for defending some poor Palestinian's humble home. What should have been a major story represented an embarrassment to two governments. The complicit US media, obediently kept on a short leash to Israel's interests, dutifully ignored the story. Not surprisingly, the Israeli soldier who drove the bulldozer was found innocent.

I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, the only dead white women who matter to the American mainstream media are the beautiful, lively, white girls killed in "tragic" sex-related slayings who resemble the attractive women reading the news. Even a beautiful white activist like Rachel Corrie, who foolishly got herself crushed protecting some poor person's shack, doesn't matter to FOX or MSNBC because she was indelicately involved in protecting rights that embarrassed two governments rather than killed by a jealous lover. Instead of dying in some sex-related slaying, Corrie died protecting some invisible person, a Palestinian, a person no more important than a dead dog in the street.

So if you're a white woman and you get killed or murdered--God forbid--better hope sex is involved. Otherwise you're a nobody and you might as well be black or brown.