The Phantom City

Tyler Hansbrough of UNC, and J.J. Redick and Shelden Williams of Duke, were unanimous picks for the All-Conference team in ACC men’s basketball. Hansbrough is the first freshman in ACC history to earn a unanimous selection. UNC’s David Noel and Reyshawn Terry also made the second and third teams, respectively, giving UNC more All-ACC players than any other school.

Pretty good, when you’re picked to finish sixth.

I probably won’t write much about Friday’s attack on UNC’s campus, except to note how thankful I am that no one was killed. My capacity for being surprised by the evil things that people do is sadly diminished after a few decades of living on this Earth, but my capacity for understanding hasn’t increased enough to really get why people do them.

What I will say is this: No matter what reason he drove a Jeep through a popular campus gathering spot, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar could not have known who was going to be in front of his car. He didn’t know their thoughts or feelings about him, or the things that concerned him. He didn’t know where they had come from or where they were going. He didn’t know about their ambitions or fears or loves. Either he was incapable of caring about those people as individual humans; or he didn’t care; or he cared, and still decided it didn’t matter enough. In the end, they were treated as objects of lesser value than his goal. And this was by a graduate of the same school’s programs in psychology and philosophy?

It shames me that we see that attitude replicated around the world, evidenced by small and large acts against our fellow humans, every day. It’s troubling, when you think of our future. You hope for peace, but peace is going to be very hard to establish, if even a few do not choose it.

Update: Elsewhere around the Web, Ed Cone asks, “Where does terrorism begin, and angry nutjobbery end?”

Update, again: Orange Politics has an interesting comment thread stemming from just after the time of the incident to now. Link courtesy of EdCone.com.

It was a good day for politics and furniture in the Democratic People’s Republic:

• Kim Jong Il Highly Praised by Russian Poet
• Koreans Will Surely Force Japan to Pay for Monstrous Crimes Committed against Them
• U.S. Ambassador’s Endless String of Reckless Remarks under Fire
• Quality Stone Furniture Produced
• Kim Jong Il Sends Wedding Table to Kye Sun Hui

Courtesy of NK News