This story -- The Scene: 52 Hours of Horror and Death for Captives at Russian School -- is truly horrifying. I don't know how the story is going to shake out -- i.e., how much the Russian security services are responsible for the high death toll, and how much the terrorists themselves -- but in any case this makes me feel that our world is sliding further into barbarism. Of course, there's also what the Russian government and military have been doing to the people of Chechnya over the last ten or so years - also truly horrifying, and with a much higher death toll, thus far.

I wonder why our good American left and right have not gotten exercised about what's happening in Russia and/or Chechnya. Is it simply because the U.S. is not involved, except through inaction? Why is it that certain causes become "fashionable," while others, in which thousands or millions of people die, remain totally unknown to most people except those who read the page 18, bottom of the page stories in the New York Times or Washington Post?