Tucson Shooting

Think Globally
On New Year’s, Councilman Reynaldo Dagsa of the Filipino city of Caloocan was shot dead in front of his family. He was taking a picture for the New Year when amidst the explosion of fireworks he fell over, fatally wounded. When they looked at the pictures on his camera, they found that in the last picture he took had his assailant standing just over the shoulder of his family pointing a gun at him. The picture was used to find the assailant, a car thief who claimed Dagsa was to “heavy handed” on criminals. The man broke the law, was sent to jail, and had the audacity to blame the man who sent him there and murder him in front of his family. He was out on bond and was captured by police on Friday.

A few days after that Salman Taseer, a governor of Pakistan of the Punjab province who wanted to repeal legislation making blasphemy against Islam a capital offense was shot dead by his own bodyguard. Pakistan has seen a sharp upturn in Islam in recent years as leaders both legitimate and less than legitimate work with Islamic factions to stay in power and/or bring order to Pakistan’s more far-flung regions. It’s a classic case of both ruthless propaganda and a very silent majority.