Oh how I wish I had time to think through these feelings ...

but today I'm off to drive north and must be on the road soon.

Been wondering why the horror of the Far East has almost left me mute. Couldn't bring my thoughts together into any coherent form. Then -- as is generally the case -- woke in the night with the pieces beginning to form a reaction.

I've been unable to pull it together because it's too crazy! The world, I mean. Blanking it all out then letting it back in, one thought at a time, saves sanity.

Why do those casualty figures not bring up terror for me? It's because of the weirdness that -- as has been true ever since childhood -- I seem to be alone with "truths" that no one else is reflecting back to me. It's terrifing to feel so alone.

I cannot be the only soul on the earth who sees the insanity. "125,000 bodies now recovered with the count rising every hour." That's for Indonesia. "Over 100,000 civilian deaths with more unaccounted for. That's for Iraq. Why isn't the world responding to the Iraqi deaths similarly? Why is there such a profound difference between how we see the loss of old men, women, and children, lost to the avarice and greed for power by man in the Middle East as tragic as those lost to an act of nature? Why are we not as horrified, outraged, as giving of aid from the abundance of the "free" world? Where is the international outrage? Where is ours? Where is mine?

I simply don't understand ...

But over the 3 hours it will take to reach my destination, I'll live with the puzzlement and try to find my way back to some kind of rational explanation.

Ed Murrow left us way too soon ... He would surely be asking such questions, don't you suppose?