Many lives lost in Iraq today.
“Останови!
Идут, идут испуганные тучи,
Закат в крови!
Закат в крови! Из сердца кровь струится!
Плачь, сердце, плачь…
Покоя нет! Степная кобылица
Несется вскачь!”
– Александр Блок.
Because I almost forgot. Thanks for reminding me, Ali.
From “The Fourth State of Matter”
“There are stars and stars and stars. The sky is full of dead men, drifting in the blackness like helium balloons.”
– Jo Ann Beard.
Remember all the victims at VT; Remember Liviu Librescu
How strange and sad
When I watched the news on Virginia Tech last night, I was reminded of Jo Ann Beard’s nonfiction essay: “The Fourth State of Matter.”
In 1991, there was a mass murder at the University of Iowa. The perpetrator was a graduate student named Gang Lu; he was in the Physics Department, where Beard was managing editor of a journal. Beard was not at work when the rampage began. Six died on that day.
Jo Ann Beard survived to write about what happened. Her colleagues and friends were not so lucky. Her writing on the subject reads like beautifully crafted fiction, but it’s not, of course, and that’s the horrible part.
Natalia A. 