Friday Roundup and week in Review

Welcome back, dear reader.  It's the most pensive time of the week here at Compound East as we've got several strong irons in the fire and continue to work on a number of projects for clients.  At this point, though, I want to take a moment and just hammer out a few thoughts.  

*Charleston has my prayers at this time.  They have experienced evil, pure and simple, and there is an unnecessary loss of life as a result of that evil.  I wish that the world could simply take a breath and just pause to mourn the loss of those nine lives before turning the entire thing into fodder for one's respective causes.  Our good President couldn't get through one statement supporting those who lost loved ones in Charleston without taking time to remind the American public that "sooner or later, we're going to have to have a discussion about why these tragedies don't occur in other advanced nations." By the way--they DO happen in other nations--and Ace has handily catalogued numerous incidents for you here. It didn't take too long for people to start pulling out the new fashionable "r" word--"Racism"--and compare the arrests with the death of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.  Now the word "Terrorism" is getting thrown around with a good bit of zeal, and the term "hate crime" is beginning to pop up.  I'm pretty sure it's the latter, I don't think the former applies here.  Regardless--let's take a moment and leave the politics behind.  Let's just grieve for these families.  

Lives were cut short by an evil being.  Let's just mourn for now.  

*I want to take a moment to recommend Warren Ellis's "Talking Points" book on Amazon right now.  It's available for the low price of $1 on Kindle, and it contains some of the best meditations on the amazing nature of technology today and how it connects to the history of yesteryear, more especially to the nature of how we've lost a sense of wonder in our lives.   If you don't see the world with new eyes after reading Ellis's rants on technology and spiritualism you've got to be emotionally dead inside.  

Enjoy your weekend.   Hold your loved ones and tell them you love them.  That's what will make the most difference to someone today.