Well, it’s painfully obvious that the world didn’t change much while we were on vacation. I was planning on some happy snappy commentary about the performance of the Americans, Phil Mickelson in particular, at the Ryder Cup, but then I found myself barraged by Drudge with various stories of madness and mayhem from around the world. Look, I know the glass is never as full or as empty as it appears to be, and, Episcopal Church bishops aside ;-), I try as best I can to look for the good in people before everything else. But for God’s sake, when you see stories like these it just makes you shudder and wonder what the hell is going on out there.

Reading about the funerals following Monday’s Amish school massacre in Pennsylvania is absolutely heart-wrenching. Hard to figure out how some 32-year-old milk truck driver’s heart could be filled with such hatred and anger to enable him to devise and commit such a heinous act. And to do so in the face of courageous acts like these.

How amazing it is, then, to behold God’s grace and charity at work in the hearts and spirit of the victims’ families to enable His light to permeate even the darkest of times, as evidenced by this:

The killer’s widow was invited to one of the funerals Thursday, according to a family member.

and this:

At the behest of Amish leaders, a fund has also been set up for the killer’s widow and three children.

Very powerful and very sad stuff, indeed.

UPDATE: The Happy Catholic says it far better than I could ever say myself. (Hat tip: The Anchoress)

UPDATE II:: Check out this comment by Don Singleton on The Anchoress’ post mentioned above:

The girls knew where they were going, and they did not fear to go. Roberts (the gunman) knew where he was going also. None the less, if you had been in their position, would your faith have been strong enough to make a similar request.

Thank you, Don, you’re right on the money. Were I (or any of us, for that matter) in that position, I pray I would have the courage and confidence to make the same kind of decision.

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And then there’s this story from Louisville, near our old haunts of a few years ago. A guy kills his four children and leaves his wife for dead. Absolutely senseless.

And this truly chilling story from Oakland, about some guy accused of using his cellar to torture and murder women.

What is it that makes people do these kinds of things? It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

It’s stories like these that make me glad I only have to worry about rabbits and not my children. Makes me wonder how parents do it these days.

But the madness ain’t just here in the U.S., it’s everywhere. How about North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il now wanting to do a nuclear test, perhaps as early as this weekend. I agree with James S. Robbins of National Review Online when he says, OK, Kim Jong, go for it and show us what you really got. I, for one, am not worried: all North Korea’s pathetic missile test failures back in July did was rile up the Japanese, and, knowing the history between those two nations, I’m not sure waking up that potential rival was the smartest thing to do.

Events and madmen like these should remind us that, regardless of what the peace-at-all-cost-niks and tinfoil-hatted moonbats out there think, there really is such a thing as pure evil and Satan at work in the world around us. And it’s not George W. Bush.

It’s much worse than that. It’s the madness and darkness of the human heart.