How Bad Does It Have To Get?

Another massacre in Iraq today today. Which leads me to wonder, what magnitude of catastrophe would cause people to stop? Any? At what point does a natural disaster become so catastrophic that your average suicide bomber thinks to himself, "You know what, maybe my piece of this world is so tiny, compared to the horror, and my issue so tiny compared to what's going on, that I'm going to take a little break, here." Would a huge asteroid careening toward earth be enough or would he try to get in just one more explosion before the big one?

I've been letting my kids listen to the news on NPR. It's pretty awful, but I feel like they need to hear this. This is one of the worst things that will happen to the world in their lifetimes (I mean, I hope so, kenehora poo poo poo) and I want them to understand how lucky we are to be here, eating our dinner of Swedish meatballs and parsley noodles.

We should also be eating a cake. The Tunnel of Fudge from Sunday's New York Times. Michael made it yesterday, and it looked amazing. Truly fabulous, all gooey in the middle. I only like milk chocolate (lay off, I already know how lame it is. Michael says he never would have married me if he'd known.) so I didn't eat any, but Michael and Zeke each had a piece and nearly expired from delight. They were all excited to dig into the rest of it.

The goddamn dog ate the cake. The whole cake. Isn't chocolate supposed to be poison for dogs? She doesn't look sick at all. She just looks smug.