Brain Fertilizer

I had never heard the story of the cellphones.

FAD usually makes me laugh out loud. He's got me choked up and moved to tears, this time.

Since it's labeled "Posts I Want To Delete", I'm blockquoting the whole thing here:

One year ago today in Madrid, 191 civilians just trying to commute to work were murdered. Thousands more injured.

For today, just a year later, the day stands alone without consideration of the election consequences a couple days later. Any mention or whine about it in the comments will be deleted. While the two are linked, jumping right away from the murders to the consequences lays the seed to stop looking at March 11th as a day of horrible murder to instead glance off it straight to later decisions. This is much the same how those who hate the wars and administration so much they can only see September 11th as the day America went nuts (such as the Libertarian Party which picked Sept. 11th last year to hold a meeting/rally to point out all those killed around the world due to US foreign policy) rather than pausing to remember the murdered and even more how many were intended to be murdered. This thinking makes it dangerously easy to start blaming the victims in some way.

We often can't quite fully grasp murder on these scales. I think most of you might have seen Eddie Izzard's routine about how reaction to murder goes from definable outrage at one or two or three killed, but goes to an odd confused incomprehension at the higher end. It is often some small detail that slices through that. On September 11th, for me, it was hearing about the phone messages left for loved ones back at home. March 11th's was also with phones, but the opposite direction. People near the scene reported that from the bodybags of the murdered came a steady stream of cell phone rings. People were desperately trying to reach their loved one. Then, as someone pointed out when I first mentioned this detail last year, perhaps after hope was given up, they were after one last chance, thanks to the outgoing message, to hear that person's voice.