1. For the last month and a half I’ve been trying (and trying is the right word) to get together a paper on terrorism (call it political violence), and maybe some day once it’s all ready and done, I will talk some more about the experience. I’ve been reading therefore on political violence a bit.
2. I read some blogposts written by friends and others on different forms of horrific violence. 3. I have been thinking about some serious episodes of violence that I have been involved - both in the recent past and the distant past.
4. Reading the news every other day – there has been one nugget regarding violence that makes me wonder how far we can sink.
5. I’ve read shocking comments on blogs and elsewhere by seemingly normal people (from political leaders to regular citizens) who say that torture is acceptable and even fine when the individual “deserves” it or that killing a person with minimum brutality is all right – if they “deserve” it. The political leaders hem and haw sometimes, and at times are very suave about it – the regular citizens are no different.
6. Yesterday I read about a thoroughly disgusting and farcical incident (quite by accident), which shocked and horrified me on so many grounds that I don’t know where to start from. If anyone is interested – type in “Aliza Shvarts” on google. Quite apart from everything else - some people have actually defended her (“well, she didn’t really do it, so what’s the big deal”), praised her, and some others have been outraged for entirely the wrong reasons. Yale even allowed her to graduate. But let me not go on with this for now. The whole thing makes me sick.
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