.	As a species, we’re doomed. At least if I’m a representative sample. It hasn’t rained here for seven weeks; the grass crackles and crunches under foot, and the bushes droop with lifeless despair. But today I leave the office to plug the parking meter, and hello, it’s raining, and I think: awww #$%*# my umbrella’s in the car. Ingratitude and self-absorbtion: sometimes I think I’m hard-wired for it. Lousy day. Considering. I mean, I’m fine, there’s food on the table, everyone’s healthy, the dog isn’t tossing supper anymore, and Gnat’s extra-super adorable as usual. For reasons we cannot figure out she’s taken to calling me “father,” and I love it. Has the ring of some well-mannered boarding-school child in tweeds who can be counted upon to bring the port and cigars at the appropriate hour. Your compensations for the strife of this mortal plane, father. Thank you, my child. No, it’s one of those days where your own boon and bounty seem unearned, unfair, because other people are dealing with so much horror and sadness. Got some bad news about a person dear to me today, the sort of news that just hangs in the back of your head - and rushes around to the front the moment you stop thinking about the trivial details that consume most of your time. And of course there was this: The bomber was a father of two. A man who has children who walks down the aisle of the bus, looking at the children whose small short cheerful lives he is about to destroy, contenting himself with the knowledge that they are mere Jews - such a man has abdicated his humanity. The fact that he died in an instant and 100+ victims survived to live with the pain for the rest of your days makes you wonder which side God is on. Or it makes you certain there’s a hell. Or it just makes you not want to think about these things at all. Whenever I hear “never again!” I remember when that seemed a possibility. But nowadays the phrase never again is met with sneers: of course again. And again and again, as often as possible. Fascists in thrall to a death-god, again. Creed-addled men who shrug at the death of babies, again. Poison-fed people who pass out candy to celebrate the murder of Jews, again. Never again has become please, not tomorrow. Here it is, again: (deep breath) The antidote to this post, and the reason pictures like the one above just stab me in the heart, is here.