This week recalls what was the strangest news day of my life (9/11 was the worst)–the day the mass suicide at Jonestown was discovered. The New York Post was then publishing multiple editions throughout the day, which meant that every time I walked outside–going to work, going to lunch, running and errand, going home–the death toll on the Post’s front page had doubled: 100, 200, 400, 800…
So it was this week, except at a greater oder of magnitude: 11,000, 22,000, 50,000, 100,000…
This is the tough nut of theodicy. The Holocaust or the Gulag can be laid to sin, or bad civics–some form of human action. No such luck here.