The morning started hectic enough, my office was getting moved to a newly remodeled floor, so all my files were on boxes, my computer disconnected, etc... when the phone line was back up, I got a message from my favorite pro-bono client telling me it's an emergency. I have known the Chavez's for many years, a traditional hard-working Mexican family, we helped them obtain legal status to live and work in the US, our kids went to each other's birthday parties, Juan would bring me Alaskan cod each time he returned from the fishing boat, when they bought their first home, we were at the house warming party...

I thought the emergency had something to do with their immigration case... what I heard next, made me drop the phone. On Monday evening their son Omar (whom I fondly remember laughing at the other end of a pinata rope), was sitting with some friends on the front steps of his girlfriend's house, when a middle aged man approached them and shot them all in the head... WTF?! Senseless

Oh, but my morning still had more bad news, when my computer was finally connected, I receive an e-mail from Amnesty International condemning the bombings in Madrid... WTF??!! my grandma lives near the Atocha train station, my dad and stepmom take the train each morning to commute into the city, I lived in Madrid for 5 years, so I have many old friends still there, and so far I have not been able to get a hold of anybody. My stomach feels like I've swallowed a concrete block and my nerves are frayed, excuse me if I vent.

So far, 192 have been killed, and nearly 1,500 injured, originally the government blamed ETA, the Basque separatist group, but this seemed too big for ETA, and besides, they ususally target military personnel and politicians, so it didn't seem in line with their tactics. They have now found a van with several detonators and documents that seem to link to al-Qaeda, apparently, because of Spain's government support of the Bush invasion of Irak, even though 92% of Spain's citizens were against it. How ironic that the very people who demonstrated against the government's intervention, pointing that the result would be an increase in terrorism worldwide, not the other way around as the government claimed, were proven right at the cost of their own lives... I'm sick and tired of violence, of senseless losses, of extremists, of manipulative politicians, of the whole fuc#ing world. I just wanna crawl in a cave and be left alone.