Pondering the Victims

Tuesday was one of those surreal days- I was swamped with work, but was aware that a terrorist attack had been perpetrated in Lower Manhattan. After the initial reports, I switched the car radio to a music station for the ride to work because I really don't like to be inundated with speculation, misinformation, and malinformation. Better to wait until the basic facts are known, and catch up with the news later.

The real horror, as opposed to the terror, of terrorist attacks on soft targets is that the victims are usually people who are just out minding their business, going to work, or having a good time at a concert or a festival. In this latest attack, I am particularly saddened by the deaths of the five Argentine high school friends who had come to NYC with other classmates for a class reunion. Two local men and a Belgian woman were also killed, a testament to the international appeal of my beloved New York City (second only to the City of Y______ in my heart).

In contrast, the perpetrator was a violent fuckup who became radicalized- thankfully, he was too incompetent to arm himself with more than a paintball gun and a pellet gun for his post-motorized rampage stand. Thankfully, he was also too stupid to begin his rampage at night, when the streets are full of hundreds of thousands of Halloween revelers.