Saved

These images are chilling. It's people scavengering their homes, looking for relics and belongings and photos and treasures left when their homes were ruined by the tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma.They don't look shell-shocked, though. They look...strong. Happy even. Grateful.

You never know when your life will change in an instant. Prayer go out to everyone affected by this horrible act of nature. And I hope they all will rebuild and be able to move on. The background shows that it was a beautiful day as they sought their relics and treasures.

Anyway, I just thought this was all so bittersweet. Because everyone says they are so grateful to be alive, or so grateful to find anything they can salvage. Sometimes, though, it just it is what it is.

Bush's Fault

This headline in the Washington Post infuriates me: "U.S. Wars Motivated Boston Suspects."

Rather, the officials said, the evidence so far suggests they were “self-radicalized” through Internet sites and U.S. actions in the Muslim world. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has specifically cited the U.S. war in Iraq, which ended in December 2011 with the removal of the last American forces, and the war in Afghanistan, where President Obama plans to end combat operations by the end of 2014.

Obama has made repairing U.S. relations with the Islamic world a foreign policy priority, even as he has expanded drone operations in Pakistan and other countries, which has inflamed Muslim public opinion.

I can think of about a hundred motivations worse than a war that hardly affected these two murderous young men.  How about a radical "religious" ideology that has propelled them to instill hatred to those surrounding them, both physically and emotionally? What about the extremists who listed step-by-step careful instructions on the internet on how to create a pressure-cooker bomb that would explode and maim and kill hundreds of innocent bystanders? How about their parents and spouse who looked the other way as their sons became indoctrinated? How about liberals who look the other way in espousing diversity-oriented ideologies over loyalties toward America? How about homicide detectives who apparently never connected suspect B with the murder of three people he knew.

There are a lot of people you can blame as motivators. Ultimately, the only ones responsible are those two individuals who set off the bombs and the mayhem, unless others are fingered (and I am not discounting that possibility.) But media, stop pressing this narrative that it was these wars that propelled the hate. The Taliban provoked the war in Afghanistan. And in Iraq, Saddam was a murderous thug and the world is better off without him in it.

No words

Prayers for all involved, because there's no way to make sense of this, even if these children are with God now.  There is no way to justify this, none, not even with a note. When I think of kids not much older than Joe's age...no words at all.

New York

I was in New York on Monday. I lose track of the travel sometimes; I get so used to getting on that plane or train or driving. I've been to California three times, New York twice, Charlottesville, and New Orleans. And I have Michigan, Chicago, more California, more New York, and elsewhere left to go.

I like to travel but I'm tired of it. So much going on. And I miss out on life here. But when I'm here, hubbie is gone. Sigh.

Ten things

New Orleans bound.
30% off at Banana Republic coupon!
Loving the Dodos.
Wish I was at SXSW.
75 degree weather.  Enough said.
Full speed ahead on the housing.
Hungry, hungry, hungry.  Have not been cooking much lately.
So excited about work travel with colleagues, lol.
The situation in Japan is dire, heartbreaking.  They compare it to Three Mile Island now.  The devastation from the earthquake and tsunami is barely being addressed.  And no one has a clue. Let alone the Obama administration, which is a non-factor these days.
I will be better about blogging. I will be. Life is moving too fast for me right now.

Awful

Horrible news from Arizona.  Prayers to Representative Giffords, who was shot in the head.  And so sad a judge, her staffer(s), and others were victims to this act. What a coward, the idiot who shot them. 

Horrible

Horrific tragedy today, with at least six dead in a metro crash near Fort Tottem/Takoma Park. Red line, which is "my" line on the metro, though I would never go that far.

I read a remark, at how sad it is, that people were waiting at home for these commuters. Families waiting for their mom or dad to come home, their roommate to come home. And they never made it home.

Prayers for all affected, and hopes that this is nothing more than a tragic accident. After living through 9/11 here, you never know.

Tragedy

Horrible tragedy, a young baseball player and two friends killed by a drunk driver. Read this. God bless Nick Adenhart and his friends tonight. I cannot imagine what his dad felt, flying across the country to see his son pitch six scoreless innings, that pride and excitement he felt leaving Baltimore. And I cannot imagine his mom making that same journey today feeling the exact opposite.