Across the road at Squander Two J is suggesting that I'm wrong in taking issue with Mark Steyn about an article by Adam Nicholson on Beslan. In so far as J offers a different reading from mine on what Steyn says about Nicholson, and a different judgement on it, I'm not going to argue with him. I just reaffirm my view against his criticism of it. Between us, J and I have already set out more than enough by way of textual exegesis on this single newspaper column. Anyone interested can form their own opinion on that basis.
I comment here on a point which isn't one of interpretation, but has to do with opposing views about what was appropriate at the time Nicholson was writing. Mark Steyn faulted Nicholson for a lament over Beslan which didn't simultaneously urge a clear course of action. J supports Steyn on this, but I don't. There are events which are so terrible that they induce in people a sorrow, and a sense of solidarity in mourning, events to which the right immediate response seems to be either silence or solemn lament. Nicholson was writing about just such an event when its ghastly details hadn't even been fully digested. Hardened though we've all become by horror after horror, the torment of the children and families of Beslan was a quite exceptional addition to the catalogue of these. It more than justified Nicholson's type of response.