Portrait of a Woman

There was some conversation on The Patio before the Production Meeting to line up what to inflict on you gentle readers over the course of this troubled week.

We could do the numbers from the latest war. On this Monday, they are reporting an even “800” casualties in the fighting on the Gaza Strip. The number “9” is much smaller, but is significant, since it represents the number of U.S. citizens already killed. That could provide a pretext for action of some kind to demonstrate national displeasure, and many in the ragged circle out back had responded to similar, or at least analogous situations.

This one is a declared war that lends a sort of grim horror to it. In the many video images that were flying through the ether yesterday this one stood out. We know a little more context today. There was a music event in progress that appears to have been a target. A young woman was shown with her arms bound behind her in the back of an SUV. The clip was striking enough that we saw different parts through the afternoon, her head down and shoved into a dirty dark vehicle.

We did not see her eyes or face until this morning until a portrait clip of her appeared. This is a demonstration of the starkest form of abuse, a kind not seen since Europe eighty years ago. Or not far away in Ukraine yesterday.

This has some very unpleasant possibilities and some people far away are feeling it now.

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