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Sunday, January 9, 2011

Pray

I'm still too consumed by a mixture of shock and despair and outrage to get anything of substance out today. It's as if the events of yesterday in Tuscon had been handwritten by some celestial scriptwriter to generate as much grief as humanly possible: a member of Congress who had just survived (survived... such a loaded word) a highly contentious election against half-crazed opposition shot in the head at point-blank range; the member of Congress married to an astronaut; one of her aides dead, a federal judge dead, a 9-year-old girl born on 9/11 and active in student government dead; the shooter having a reading list that includes the Communist Manifesto and Main Kampf. The fact that it happened at a town-hall meeting. The fact that, when the House read the Constitution on the floor, she was given the First Amendment, the part that addresses peaceable assembly and redress of grievances. The fact that Giffords actually appears on her way to recovering from a bullet to the brain. It's an overwhelming amount of emotional angst, topped with the most tragic of miracles.

In lieu of anything more substantial, here is a profile of the victims of the shooting.

It's Sunday. A good time to do some praying.

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