A Return

It has been an excessively long time since my last post. Work and travel, as usual, have a way of intervening. But the shocking images outside the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria in southern Brazil today provided superior motivation. The scenes of bodies being carried through the streets and bystanders trying to hack down the walls of the building convey a tragedy made all the more devastating by its inevitability. An appaling toll of 232, mostly university students, is the latest fatality figure--and certain to rise in the coming days. The club's fire prevention certificate had apparently been expired; too few exits made the club a deathtrap; and a band's pyrotechnic show went awry--perfect tinder for a disaster, and one that we have seen before many times.