Mathemagenic

Rick:

I must admit that I had no idea who Enzo Baldoni was, not until a few days ago, not until the news of his kidnapping in Iraq echoed through the blogosphere to me.

It's strange to know new things from blogs:
on one side, they seem as coming through layers of cottons, they come somewhat filtered... but when you try to understand what this "filter" is, you see that it's just the lack of the kind of amplification from the mass media we are used to, and that with just a few clicks you can actually access and open up a true hurricane of details, points of view, gossip and anecdotes about it.

That's one of the features of blogs. Bad? Good? Sincerely I don't know, and it won't be today the day to judge that.

What I know now is that Enzo Baldoni was Italian, was a journalist, a pacifist, that was kidnapped on August 19th and executed a few hours ago.

...and that he was a blogger too.

I don't watch TV and don't read newspapers. I do spend a lot of time online, but go to check news only once in a while. But there are different days.

On these days you can't avoid news, they get to you, they suck you in and then you follow, get all the details on your fingertips, wanting to know, not wanting to know, zooming in, drowning, feeling it so real, trying to escape, hide in layers of cottons, try to focus on work, things to be done - because with all those details terrorists get into your room and then it becomes too real, too personal and too much...

It gets personal anyway... Those things happen in my country. And in my city. On the metro line that connects my home with the city center... My mother is a school principal. I worked in school for 5 years. Have memories of the First September celebrations - being a schoolkid, teenager, teacher... I was in Beslan with my classmates at 13. After a few days hiking in the mountains we were happy to see civilisation. We slept in a school - lots of sleeping bags on the floor...

But it's too much living with terrorists in my room, so my mind escapes focusing on other things. Life goes on...

And once life comes back I start thinking - is there anything I can do?

Update: at least I can start here - The International Foundation for Victims of Terror Acts (also: press-release)

Also: Elmine 

It's events like this in the world that make me want to crawl under my bed and ignore the evil world around me...