The Massacre of the Innocents, now and then

The murder of innocents such as happened in Connecticut yesterday is not unusual in the United States today.  Here are some contemporary images from that slaughter, available -- an invasion of a privacy no longer available to Americans:

The shooter in 2005:

The affected community:

See Ezra Kline's Wonkblog for a brief history off recent mass murder in the United States.

Mass murder pf innocents is not unusual in the history of the world. King Herod's Massacre of the Innocents is well known and was painted  often by Renaissance and Baroque painters. The paintings are great; the subject not so great.  Here are three:

Fra Angelico, 1452

Peter Paul Rubens, 1621

Cornelis Cornelisz Van Haarlem, 1590

The United States is a a well-gunned country.  Banning guns will not stop the slaughter of innocents.  Easy access to them certainly make killing many at once much easier for those otherwise incompetent to do much harm.

After the jump, more Cornelis Cornelisz Van Haarlem

A moving blog post written in Arabic, and a song by Iggy Pop

This blog post, صور فراق ، صور وداع ، صور رحيل ، صور فراق ووداع رومانسية 2012translates by machine as "Parting images, pictures and farewell, departure Pictures, Images and farewell parting romantic 2012".

The images are eclectic and cumulatively moving.  Here is a sample:

Baddog.Ltd on deviantART

I would like to know the author of the blog.

Baddog accompanies the pic above with the words to this Iggy Pop song, thanks to capturedguy:

Lost Boys, Wayward Angels and Dead End Kids: Pikture 11

Get into the car
We'll be the passenger
We'll ride through the city tonight
We'll see the city's ripped backsides
We'll see the bright and hollow sky
We'll see the stars that shine so bright
Stars made for us tonight
And everything was made for you and me
All of it was made for you and me
So let's take a ride and see what's mine

Iggy Pop - The Passenger

Youtube:

If you don't know The Passenger, you should. Er, I didn't before this moment.  Velazquez would love it.