Glad your niece is okay. But sorry about the sadness of your Mother’s Day.

Condolences to you and your wife for your friend’s loss.

* * *
Surabaya’s attach is such a shocking opposite to the sentiments we usually see on Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day as well.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44104887

“The past days’ deadly Islamist attacks in Indonesia have stood out because two families – parents and their very own children – were the attackers.

While children have been used as suicide bombers before, it is rare that parents take their own children to die along with them.

Normally children are taken from their families, indoctrinated or drugged, then forced to attack.
…
On Sunday, a mother targeted a church in Surabaya, alongside her two daughters, while the father and the two sons detonated bombs at two others.

The daughters were nine and 12 while the sons were aged 16 and 18.
…
The advantage for militant groups is that children are harder to detect for security forces. They generally arouse less suspicion than adults.

“The modus operandi of security officers is basically to look for a man carrying something suspicious,” agrees Mr Arifianto.

“But in the future, and maybe even the next days, police and security officers will also have to anticipate children being used in such attacks.”

While initially Islamist suicide attacks had been carried out by men, groups like the Taliban or Islamic State (IS) then moved on to also use women because they appeared less suspicious.

Once women suicide bombers became more common, the next step was to use children because, again, they were a group less likely to cause suspicion.
…
In the case of Indonesia, however, neither women nor children had been used in suicide attacks before.

“It’s exploiting the weakest point in our security systems,” Mr Sulaiman explains.

“People don’t expect that from children – and kids on their own or parents with kids are often not even properly checked by security.”
…
The reason why parents would have chosen to use their own children in the blasts remains puzzling to analysts.”

* * *
Security checks will have to change — perhaps TSA’s procedures are not overly cautious after all, just ahead of the times.

Puzzling to most of us, yes, but this reminds me of the lament attributed to Golda Meier about Israel and Palestine:
“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

Happy mother’s day!
* * *
Time travel…

but we spend the weekend trying to find out if my niece was ok, she was in surabaya… bombs went off… she is ok… but someone my wife knows lost her two kids and doesnt know it as she is in the hospital with burns…

sorry…
🙁

My late wife, mother to my three grown children, died a dozen years ago, but my now-wife has been a wonderful step-mom to my three children. So I did have someone to wish a happy Mother’s Day this year — and what a blessing she has been!

Happy mother’s day!