Followup to yesterday’s post: CNN has posted Victims of Terror, a moving collection of photos and brief obituaries of civilians killed in terrorist attacks in Israel this year. One of the things that struck me, besides too many photos of children and the elderly, was the victims’ surprisingly diverse backgrounds. It reminded me of Portraits of Grief, the obituaries of September 11th victims published by the New York Times. Apparently, like America, the face of Israel mirrors the face of the world.

CNN also published a bizarre statistical estimation “based on a per capita comparison” of how many people would have been killed in other countries in comparable attacks. What exactly is the point of this? One is too many. A better thought experiment would be to pick a group four or five tables from a crowded restaurant, and then try to imagine all of those people blown to pieces in the next moment. Think about that every time the waiter asks how you’re doing.