Have you seen the rivers of the blood?
First a trickle, then a flood --
First the ocean's pounding roar,
Then a tidal wave hits upon the shore.
Knives and arrows fell like rain,
And the powder burst aflame,
And the flames they flew so high --
Dropped their poison down from the sky.

from Rivers Of The Blood
By Phil Ochs


I had intended to write about something lighthearted today.  I even had a topic in mind.  That was until I saw the pictures from Qana on the news.   Though the pictures are played over and over again, they are no less shocking each time they flash across the television screen. And the images from Western media, shocking though they are, are edited in the name of "discretion."  A few minutes on the Internet (browsing independent media sites and non-Western media outlets) brings the whole gruesome reality of war crimes into a perspective which is admittedly unpleasant but far more true to life.  The pictures are of the bodies of dead women and children in their nightclothes, all killed — all murdered — in the name of a so-called "right of self-defense".   As if anyone — be they man, state, or military-industrial complex — needs to be "defended" from frightened children and anxious mothers. 

The world should remember today as a day of great tragedy...and great shame.

Maybe tomorrow the world will seem less cruel and less hopeless.  But not today.  Certainly not today.
"If I've offended you by this rather mild account...I'm not in the least sorry." 
-- Edward R. Murrow, reporting on-site from the liberation of Buchenwald, April 15, 1945