I have become desensitized to violence in the middle east, particularly in Israel and the Palestenian territories. The way the news reports work it's easy to think in terms of numbers: the volume of dead on one side, the volume of dead on another. The headlines are always concerned with quantification. Eight dead here. Three killed there. It's easy to lose track of the fact that these are people we are talking about, particularly in light of the fact that graphic photos--that is, photos that actually depict the things that occured--are hard to come by in American media. But this is not about that.

And the fact that these most recent shootings happened in a seminary. Well, even though I'm a- (or anti-?) religious, that really does make it sadder, somehow.

But I didn't know or realize any of this until I saw this photo in the Wildcat today. Even in black and white, it was still moving. These are people and that's a person's blood. And the whole thing is just unbearably sad again.