Blur Circle

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Wednesday, April 17, 2002 The Lottery in Babylon

What was originally supposed to be a tragic accident -- the truck explosion outside the synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia -- has now been claimed by a terrorist group as their responsibility.

I'm vaguely reminded of Borges' story The Lottery in Babylon, in which a lottery-like game, run by an omnipotent group "The Company", extends subtly and perniciously into daily life so that no occurence can be confidently assumed to be outside The Company's control of the game.

The analogy is admittedly weak. Terrorist acts are an altogether different level of horror, of course, and done by many different and often small groups. But the boundaries are becoming just a little blurry.