As for many people, no doubt, my thoughts and feelings today have kept on returning to the barbaric attacks in Madrid, as an undercurrent to the "routine" work and the banter of the newsroom.
Such savagery, the meaningless wrecking of so many lives, at first almost robbed me of words, like D.W. at 'Brain not found' (Fr.):
"Ils sont graves les jours où on arrive même plus à rire de nous même. Parce qu'ils sont 200 preuves de l'absurde imbécilité des extrêmes humains. Parce qu'ils laissent derrière eux des femmes et des enfants et autant de vides irréparables. Parce que ces trains éventrés. Parce que certains jours, l'ironie n'a plus sa place."
But he did find a voice again after that post, could laugh at himself and the world anew, just as we all must even when we grieve.
Those who appalled me in the aftermath of such "absurd imbecility in human extremes" are a few politicians whose words we have endured today, men and women who deserve nothing but contempt for their swift manipulation of the event to their own self-serving policies, ideologies and ends. Often I'm teased for a cynic, but it's people like these whom I would call cynical, almost as callous, cold-blooded and extremist in their way as those they purport to abhor.
In a striking contrast to the state of the Internet after the attack on the Twin Towers, 911 days earlier as 'news24' was swift to point out, a strange silence about the slaughter in Spain seems to have taken hold of the blogosphere, especially in my regular haunts on the far side of the Atlantic.
There've been notable exceptions and I'm making no judgement about the widespread lack of comment; it's just that I'm surprised.
Why's it so very quiet?
In English, Xeni Jardin's been posting helpful pointers to the reactions to the attacks at 'boingboing'. Xeni also contributed to an article by Leander Kahney on how the "Net cries out for Madrid" at 'Wired'.
Without wishing to engage in useless duplication of these "meta-link" articles, they include a growing list of blogs and their posts at '11 de marzo de 2004' at 'bitacoras', which also provides an automatic translation into English -- no worse than most, and certainly better than none.
'jsmooth995' put hours of effort into a similar attempt at 'hiphopmusic', coming up with 50 blogs and links.
And Victor R. Ruiz did another great job at 'Blogging in the wind,' including a link to a Flash graphic of what happened yesterday morning prepared for 'El Pais' newspaper, which is as chilling an understatement, in the shape of a moving map and commentary, as the photographs have been shocking.
As for comment, some of the best I have read -- and I apologise here to people whose work I've much appreciated but don't have the time to note -- comes from Chris Allbritton, who has said some of the most thoughtful things about 'Who's to blame?' at 'Back to Iraq' and in an editorial at the 'New Zealand Herald'.
Though I don't share all the views expressed in it, the latter kicks a piece of "patriotic" pro-Bush drivel at the 'New York Post'' back into the gutter. I'm sure we'll see only too much more of such nonsense.
Lee Harris offers a far more reflective piece on what Madrid might mean for key elections this year in 'A Greater Challenge?' at 'Tech Central Station'.
At the weekend, I'll try to reply to people who've been e-mailing me lately, particularly after yesterday's post and in response to my observations on the current anti-government protests in France, but for tonight, I felt the best thing to do was try to help a bit more with the links.
10:00:08 PM link 
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