There are reports coming in

of bombings at a marathon in Boston. I find it hard to comprehend how anyone could even contemplate such an act, let alone carry it out. How can any human being hate another so much they want to kill them?  
There have been some people whose actions I have loathed and detested. I would happily incarcerate them in solitary confinement but I do not believe in the death penalty. How can anyone kill people they do not even know? How can anyone kill people who have done them and nobody else any harm? 
My Twitter time line is also full of expressions of shock, of admiration for those who immediately helped and for the emergency workers. There are requests for help. There are phone numbers to call for information. Such events bring out the worst and the very best in people. 
There will be much made of all this in the media today and tonight. There will be expressions of anger and outrage - and rightly so. 
And yet, this happens almost every day. It happens in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. It happens in other areas of the Middle East and it happens in Africa. There are incidents in other areas of Asia and elsewhere in the world. They happen almost every day and often do not reach the international media at all.
How often do people watch something like that on the television news services and find it barely has an impact? It is almost as if we have grown used to scenes of violence and carnage - as long as it is happening in a country we regard as being "somewhere else" and "nothing to do with us really". 
How much do we really care? How much do we just think we care? Do we care just because this time we think of it as something which has happened to us?