Things I Never Expected

That I would have to go through a metal detector to walk into a courthouse or go to a basketball game.

That students would have to pass through metal detectors to go to school.

That people would weaponize fertilizer, pressure cookers and small rental trucks.

That frustrated people would set out to kill as many civilians as possible just because they could. 

That one day many people would call me to ask if the Significant Other had been inside a building attacked by a missile in the form of a commercial airliner.

That one day I would call a girlfriend to ask if her children were safe from a shooter at their school.


That one day I would call the Younger Person to be sure he was at work and not running on the bike path three blocks from his apartment.

That I would get tired -- really, really tired -- of hearing politicians say, "If we do X, the terrorists will have won."

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“Man has free choice, or otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain. ” 

― Thomas Aquinas

Summa Theologica

“It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon a renunciation of instinct....”

― Sigmund Freud 

Civilization and Its Discontents 

Whose Lives Matter?

 Some interesting news reports:

1)  Between January 7 and 9, terrorists in France assassinated eight journalists, an unrelated woman and four shoppers at a kosher supermarket, in what the BBC called one of the country's "worst security crises in decades."
     Several days later, 40 heads of state and an estimated 3.7 million people participated in demonstrations of mourning and solidarity around France.  French security is now on high alert, with 18,000 police and soldiers deployed to protect the country from future attacks.

2) A few days earlier, the terrorist group Boko Haram conducted a four-day siege on two cities in Nigeria.
      In the city of Baga, 620 structures were destroyed.  The damage was worse in Doron Baga, where 3,100 buildings were destroyed.  Here is an Amnesty International aerial image of property damage in the two cities.

      As you can see, the damage in Baga was much less widespread.  Before the attack its population was estimated at 10,000.  As many as 5,000 people fled.  Now Baga is said to be empty.
       Witnesses who fled during the attack on Baga reported that people were being "killed like animals."
      Amnesty International quoted one man who said this:  "They killed so many people in Baga.  I ran to the bush.  As we were running, they were shooting and killing."
      A woman said this:  "I don't know how many, but there were bodies everywhere we looked."
      Remember, these quotes came from Baga, the less damaged city.
      The government of Nigeria says 150 people, including Boko Haram members, died in the attacks.  Other reports range as high as 2,000 dead.  Both estimates seem like understatements, but with Boko Haram now in control of the region -- an area about the size of Costa Rica -- no accurate estimate can be made of the loss of life.
       Neighboring countries are discussing sending 3,000 troops to the area to fight the terrorists.

3)  In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls.  The West responded with a blistering barrage of twitter posts, #BringBackOurGirls, that numbered in the millions and continues to this day.
     Two or three of the girls have managed to escape, but the rest, or at least those still alive, are still being held by the terrorists.