"The Horror! The Horror!"

One definition of Hell that I have heard is that one is forced to watch all the pain and brutality on their near ones, for all eternity. Suddenly, Fire and Brimstone does not seem all that bad in comparison!

A girl raped and brutally beaten, so bad that she is fighting for that single thread of life for the last several days. An armed man killing his mother, and then shooting 20 children dead - all between the ages of 6 to 10. A person "who enjoys killing" burns a house, and then shoots the firefighters who come to douse the fire.

These acts go so far beyond the boundary of extremity of violent crimes, that it should raise some fundamental questions for us - are we still humans? Were they one of us?

The Mayans were right. We just misunderstood. It is not that the world ends on the said day; it begins the process of the end.

Many of us has asked "Why?". There is no answer. There cannot be an answer - I refuse to accept a world where there is a "reason" for these behaviors. The much more painful and shameful admission is that there is no way to fix and heal those who have been hurt by these acts. No way to heal them. The best we can do is determine how we can ensure this does not happen again.

We Failed You!

Every Single one of us. Everywhere in the world.

We failed you. It was our utmost duty, our utmost purpose. To protect you, to protect your smile. To keep the radiance in your eyes.

Now the twenty of you have left us. Twenty families destroyed beyond repair. Twenty purest souls gone from our midst. The world has become much darker without the brilliance of your innocence.

When we are done grieving, we need to accept our failure. While we will always remember your bright eyes, and your echoing laughter, let's not also forget that this must never happen again.

Whatever else we have to sacrifice, or live without - this must never happen again!

We will always miss you, Angels of Sandy Hook!

Dilemma

Judith Miller was sentenced to Jail time because of her denial to reveal her sources in the CIA agent leak case. I am sure many, like me, would feel queasy about this forever. Irrespective of what camp one is in, it's not a victory. Except maybe that handful few, that started the whole turmoil.

The identity of CIA agent Plame was revealed by someone (possibly someone very high up in the administration; some rumours suggest it may be Carl Rove himself) to the NY Times reporter Miller. The congressional Grand Jury commanded Miller to reveal her sources

This incident is being tried under the shadow of the revelation of Deep Throat by the big guy himself. It's still fresh in everyone's mind how useful unnamed sources can be for journalism and for the nation, and how important journalistic integrity is for the society. Inevitably, the mind creates an association between the preserved secrecy of the Watergate scandal information source, and the CIA-gate scandal loud-mouth. If one were to look at Judith Miller's decision in and of itself, it deserves an applause, and it seems as though she has been a martyr to the great ideals of Journalism at the hands of the ruthless establishment.

But look a bit further, and one starts to get the uneasy feeling. It would seem the nation deserves to find out who had acted so dastardly as to leak the identity and to endanger the life of a person serving the nation. Unlike Deep Throat, this person is shallow-mouth to say the least, and a traitor and schemer. Miller is not protecting a patriot, but a scoundrel (many scoundrels?) who would endanger the life of a patriot for the "crime" that her husband spoke against the president. And by the way, if these people have the slightest bit of integrity and humanity, they should step forward.

Yes, Miller has been a martyr. A martyr of pugnaciousness. A martyr for the lowly cause of aristocratic whim. One may lament her fate, but one should not call her a hero. She should serve as a warning lesson to journalists about the adage:

"Lesson One: If you make a promise, don't break it."
"Lesson Two: Use your moral judgement and discretion when making promises."

Genesis

Which is worse ..?? An idle mind, or a wandering one ..?? The simple answer is, it depends. It depends on the observer's perspective. However, being plagued by the ills of a wandering mind myself, I tend to favour a wandering one ... in an almost ironic sense, it shows a lot of promise ... it emanates the feeling of a Huckleberry Finn adventure-land.

I have been meaning to follow this mischievous child's footsteps for many months now ... and at times I do. This effort is to make it easier for me to follow the footsteps, and retrace them later.

For anyone reading this, join me ... not only should this be interesting as a snapshot in time, but it should be even more interesting once we follow the thread in time ..!!