Dancing on the heads of our enemies

It hardly seems like a week has passed since the last Monday, but here we are at the start of another workweek cycle. I could read all sorts of things into this morning's first randomly shuffled-up song, when Monday fires up with the group Twenty Mondays doing a song titled, Lost Another Day. I refuse to believe, however, that shuffled songs can be read like tea leaves. Or, more precisely, I believe they foretell in about the same way that tea leaves do. They don't.

The top was still down (from this sunny weekend) on the Miata so I left it that way for the drive in. The skies were threatening rain, so I fully expected I would have to yard it back over me someplace between home and campus, but never had to. There were two drops on my windshield as I parked.

It's morning like this that I am so glad I have something other then radio to listen to. I would guess the airwaves and "interwebs" will be full of the life, crimes, and death of Osama Bin Ladin.

If I'm honest, I don't really know how to feel about this news. Oh, he had blood on his hands and certainly brought about his own death with his own actions. He deserved to be brought to some form of justice (though as Cockburn reminds us, "...everybody loves to see see justice done, to somebody else."), and a death sentence would no doubt have been the result of any trial (after a good long stint of torture, I'm sure). His death is one inevitably-required piece of closure for 9-11 and countless other acts of terrorism.

But to actually celebrate the death of any individual carries things a bit too far for me. Whether it's jubilantly dragging burnt corpses through the street or dancing in front of the White House and lighting off fireworks, this need to dance on the heads of our victims doesn't spring from our better natures. Maybe the defeat of that which we greatly fear, however symbolic, needs this sort of primal release?

I haven't walk in the bare feet of someone whose village has been destroyed, whose family has been killed, and who has managed to bring down the one(s) responsible, or any other equivalent. Maybe that is what it takes to truly understand this kind of emotion.

We know so little about ourselves and the world around us, moments like this reveals. That is why I don't trust those who have all the answers. Constant discovery and a willingness to live with some uncertainty is the only honest answer.

I said, earlier, that I don't believe the shuffled playlist foretells, but there are days when it seems strangely prescient. Today's playlist wrapped up with Bring The Boys Back Home.


- Twenty Mondays: Lost Another Day
- Jónsi: Boy Lilikoi
- Ralf Illenberger: Big Change
- Pink Floyd: Bring The Boys Back Home

- Posted via Hermes.