Heartbreak in Orlando

One again we mourn the victims of another brutal attack, this time on our own soil. Once again the innocent suffer. Once again, I really, really want to climb up on a soapbox and scream about the senselessness of it all. But once again I remind myself that the people who need to hear it won't listen, and the people who'll listen don't need to hear it.

My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Orlando, Florida, USA.


If you read this blog with any regularity, then you know that I'm just a geeky engineer. But you should also know that I love this particular bit of poetry, which is as appropriate now as it was when I put it up after the Brussels attacks:

The Law of the Jungle
(From The Jungle Book)
by Rudyard Kipling

Now this is the Law of the Jungle --
as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,
but the Wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk
the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

Stay strong. Stay united. Watch each others' backs. Remember, you don't have to agree with each other on every issue - or even like each other, for that matter - to live in peace together. People from one corner of the globe to the other have forgotten this simple truth. Americans, in particular, ought to remember this tidbit from the end of the Pledge of Allegiance:

With Liberty and Justice for All

Peace for Brussels

One again we mourn the victims of yet another brutal attack. Once again the innocent suffer. And once again, I must restrain myself from going on a rant about senseless violence and the cowards that perpetrate it.

I offer my deepest condolences to the people of Brussels, Belgium, for your pain and suffering and loss.

I'm no poet; I'm just a geeky engineer. But I love this particular piece of poetry, which is supremely appropriate right now:

The Law of the Jungle
(From The Jungle Book)
by Rudyard Kipling

Now this is the Law of the Jungle --
as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,
but the Wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk
the Law runneth forward and back --
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

 There's much more to the poem, but these first two verses I've committed to memory. The emphasis on the last two lines is my own. Most folks think that "The Law of the Jungle" means "survival of the fittest" or "every man for himself." Maybe that's true in the jungle, but not here. Maybe it's true of solitary creatures, but humans aren't solitary- well, we're not meant to be, anyway. No, for (most) humans, "The Law of the Jungle" was phrased more succinctly by Alexandre Dumas in "The Three Musketeers":

All for One, and One for All