I Feel it Would be Wrong Not to Stop and Take Note of this Photo from Aleppo

Maybe this stopped me cold  because of the pathway that, from this angle, heads straight toward town. Maybe it’s because the channel is otherwise such a generic and anonymous element of infrastructure. Or maybe — the Syrian government having grown even more senseless and maniacal in recent weeks — it’s because it feels like a clear line (yet another one) has been breached.  Practically though, can you imagine if 100 corpses had been deposited in one continuous stretch along the High Line in New York City? What’s so shocking here, what’s so perverse is how the scene of these bodies revels in its blatancy. I’m as sickened by this as I am by a conflict that, proceeding along with the steadiness of an hour hand, only guarantees more of the same.

(photo: Thomas Rassloff/EPA caption: People gather at the banks of a waterway in the south of Aleppo from which rebels have recovered more than 100 bodies.)