2025 Has Started with Terror

 

To wake and find that the promise of a new year is already draped in tragedy is a horrific start--and all my condolences to the friends and families of those lost in the horrific assault in New Orleans and to the survivors and theirs. It is a stark reminder that evil doesn't take a holiday, and that disturbed and radicalized people are among us. Violence is the burden of a society that needs meaning and unity. We are divided and life is stressful, and people dissociate and create demons to justify carrying out the worst of their fantasies. 

We should not become numb to this. We cannot accept it. It is inimical to civilized life. 

I don't know what the hell animated the mind of Shamsud-Din Jabbar to cause a man who once swore an oath to protect and defend this country to so drastically turn against its citizens, but this was an American--not a stranger. We grew this problem here. 

There was another, highly disturbing image we received today--

A Cybertruck on fire outside of a Trump property? It seemed too on the nose. Of course, those trucks have a reputation.  And what could be more of a visual epigram of the plutocratic marriage of convenience between Musk and Trump and what it means for the rest of us? 

But what this episode meant was death for the driver of the vehicle and injuries to seven other souls. for reasons we don't yet know. And I can't fathom why the trunk full of incendiaries itself would ignite without some obvious trigger, but I know this is being worked on--

It's very concerning. Both trucks, the one in LA and the one in NV, seem to have been rented on the same phone vehicle rental app. 

We are living in deeply troubled times, where mass casualty events are like some nightmare we are always just around the corner from. We need things to life FOR, not just live THROUGH.