IED

They used the term ‘IED’ at CNN, as if everyone in the world knows what that stands for. I understand how these situations arise. A new phenomenon is noted in the real world, someone tries and defines it. In order to be accurate, so that all the specialists know what they are talking about, the description of the new thing tends to be rather lengthy. Writing or talking about it is cumbersome so the long definition ‘improvised explosive devises’ becomes IED. When the general public, listening and watching, discovers an acronym or initialism and its meaning, one has the feeling that this thing referred to must be highly prevalent, a daily occurrence. Otherwise it wouldn’t be necessary to shorten it to its first letters. The images were clear. The origin of the deadly device could be deduced from the language of the newspaper used to imbed the nails and ball bearings in… Peter Berger, in the interview with the captured man, reminded him of what the Koran actually says: If you kill one human being, you kill the whole of humanity. In the Bible they teach not to do unto another what one doesn’t want done to oneself. Native Americans teach that we are all related; so does the wave structure of matter on the cosmic level since we are all part of the same space from which comes time through movement. Buddha teaches ahimsa, non-violence and my grandmother taught me gentleness. How come that with all the religions, teachings and science, we humans are still stubbornly violent?