Terror in Bangalore

There was a terrorist attack in Bangalore today. Some people drove up in a car onto the Indian Institute of Science campus, barged into the JN Tata auditorium, where a conference was taking place, lobbed a couple of grenades, sprayed the delegates with bullets from automatic rifles, and then fled. A Professor of Mathematics, MC Puri, was killed. Several other delegates were injured, some seriously. The news is that the injured may recover. The affiliation of the perpetrators is not yet known.

Now the closest I've come to a terrorist victim so far is a friend of a friend. Or in a physical sense, forty miles. So the direct effect on me is minimal. Yet such an incident upsets me in some way I cannot figure out; and I've spent the whole day fuming. A complete and utter waste and no way to honor the dead. The police and the military and the intelligence folks - they will deal with the terrorists, nothing I can contribute to. The only thing for the rest of us to do is to try to build civilization faster than these s.o.b.s can tear it down. Getting emotional or getting distracted is merely giving these criminals another tiny victory.