Read this and weep -

[malaise]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/27/norway-attacks-jo-nesbo
<snip>
A few days ago, before Utøya and the government building, a friend and I were talking about how two things always go hand in hand: the joy of being alive and the sorrow that things change. That even the brightest future can never entirely make up for the fact that no roads lead back to what went before. To the innocence of childhood. To the first time you fell in love. To the scents of July, the blades of grass tickling your sweaty back as you leap from a boulder and in the next second are enveloped by the ice-cold meltwater of a Norwegian fjord, with your nose and throat filled with the taste of salt and glaciers.

An exaggeration, of course. A glance at police records is all it takes. And yet. In June I was cycling with the Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, and a mutual friend through the streets of Oslo, setting out for a hike on a forested mountain slope within the city limits of this big yet little city. Two bodyguards followed a few metres behind us, also on bicycles. As we stopped at an intersection for a red light, a car drove up beside the prime minister with the window rolled down. The driver called out his name. "Jens!" The fact that the Norwegian people usually speak of the nation's top leader and even address him directly by his first name is in the tradition of the egalitarian spirit, and it has long since ceased to surprise me.

After the bomb went off – an explosion that was felt where I live in Oslo – and reports of the shootings on the island of Utøya began to come in, I asked my daughter whether she was scared. She replied by quoting something I had once said to her: "Yes, but if you're not scared, you can't be brave."

So if there is no road back to how things used to be, to the total, unconscious and naive fearlessness of what was untouched, there is a road forward. To be brave. To keep on as before. To turn the other cheek as we ask: "Was that all you've got?" To refuse to allow fear to set limits to the way we continue to build our society.

[Angry Dragon]

1. There sure is a difference how different countries handle the same thing

[malaise]

3. Rational folks know that fear is not an option

Go Norway!!

[ProfessionalLeftist]

2. "no road back to how things used to be" - reminds me of how I felt after 9/11

I wish our own government and people had been wiser (like the Norwegians) in their response. As is, we're still drowning in fear and suffering the loss of civil rights that we may never have restored.

[malaise]

4. Absolely but the ReTHUG plan was fear

divide and rule. Look at how they fugged up the planet in the midst of all that fear mongering.

[grasswire]

5. beautifully written n/t

[malaise]

6. Yes indeed

:hi: