Murderers

I'm sure there's some nugget of truth in whatever grievance has led these murdering villains to go on a coordinated bloodthirsty rampage in Mumbai, India, but I'm with Gandhi on choosing non-violent protest. Not only does this kind of violence make whatever cause look wrong, but it leads me to believe that the killers carrying it out are simply an organized collection of psychopaths. To shoot random people in cold blood means a complete lack of human empathy, something missing from birth or amputated some time after. The hell with the politics -- psychopaths who are capable of inflicting such tragedy get off on it. See Elephant.

This map -- can you believe Google enables us to map mass slaughter? -- shows the eight civilian sites attacked and somehow deepens the horror and outrage. Whereas it might seem to add clinical detachment, I think this technology brings us closer to the crimes. Heaven forbid seeing a similar map with the familiar graphics of your town or mine having suffered such an attack.

If nothing else, it is confirmed that terrorism still exists even after our promising election. And our President-elect has responded properly in his statement. It surely must sober him, if he hasn't seemed sober enough, on the challenges, both expected and unexpected, facing him in the four-to-eight years ahead.