About Today's Bombings

Today, we were surprised by news of some deadly explosions.  BBC News has reported^[1],

At least 31 people have been killed and more than 200 others wounded in a series of early-morning explosions in cities across Iraq, officials say.

The bombings were on the day of their first elections since American troops left more than a year ago^[2].

Iraqi officials believe the insurgent group is growing stronger and increasingly co-ordinating with allies fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad across the border. They say rising lawlessness on the Syria-Iraq frontier and cross-border cooperation with a Syrian group, the Nusra Front, has improved the militants' supply of weapons and foreign fighters.

The intensifying violence, some of it related to the provincial elections scheduled for Saturday, is worrying for Iraqi officials and Baghdad-based diplomats alike. At least 14 candidates have been killed in recent weeks, including one slain in an apparent ambush Sunday.

This, of course, shouldn't take away from the tragedy today in Boston^[3], but hopefully it provides some perspective on how lucky we are to have such things be so uncommon^[4].

To provide a little bit more perspective, I'll leave you with the words of Patton Oswalt^[5].

Boston. Fucking horrible. 

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths. 

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness. 

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago. 

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

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1.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22149863
2.  http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/15/iraq-bombings-wave-attacks.html
3.  http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/15/17764747-explosions-rock-finish-of-boston-marathon-3-killed-and-scores-injured?lite
4.  http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
5.  https://www.facebook.com/pattonoswalt/posts/10151440800582655