The One That Didn't Go Off

I recall the amazing lack of coverage, the shying away from the word "terrorism."

Charles Pierce published this a day before Anders Behring Breivik set off a car bomb in downtown Oslo then went on a shooting spree at a youth camp.

This is wrenching stuff. 

 h/t to Balloon Juice

Twenty Seven Strikes Again

Amy Winehouse is dead.

Given the high profile of her addictions this comes as little surprise, sad as it is. I admit that when she popped onto the music scene I took a couple of listens to Frank and Back To Black and tried very hard to like them.

I did not. Her music just didn't speak to me. Or perhaps I couldn't hear what she had to say.

Humans die in multitudes every second of every day. All but a rare few are utterly unknown to me. Those who exist far outside my small circle of family and friends but who are known to me can have an impact when living, and again when they die. At the very least a recognized name in the obituaries prompts me to say “Hmm...how sad.” The connections we have to public figures exist entirely in our minds. They are forged through our consumption of books, films, music, art, news and the like, but are of our own making. The person who prompted this connection, this kindred recognition doesn't know who we are, or that we even exist. That fact doesn't negate the reality of what they have made us feel, or think, or attempt.

Amy Winehouse is dead. Her music didn't touch or move me, but her desperate, whipsaw dance with addiction, too familiar to me, did. I don't believe there is anything after this world, so wishing peace upon her in some fictitious after life would be dishonest of me. The only peace she has found, intentionally, accidentally or otherwise, is the total surcease of death.

Worth Remembering

In the midst of the fury and frenzy surrounding the debt ceiling kerfluffle a simple fact has been utterly lost.

Congress need not reach any deal of any kind concerning the deficit (about which Republicans care not a whit), taxes, nor anything else. The debt ceiling is a relatively simple thing that can be raised entirely on its own.

That it has become a hostage to the vandals quest to annihilate government by other than military means is rather revealing.

That is all.