I had no sooner replied to an email on editorial matters from our friend and colleague David Berlinski than I saw on Facebook that David’s daughter, journalist Claire Berlinski, has reported on being present moments after today’s terror attack in Paris. Find her powerful account of the experience at Ricochet.
As Claire notes, she was passing through the neighborhood and late for an appointment — which, had she been on time, would have put her right at the scene of the attack as it was happening.
I was there only by luck: I had no desire to see this. Luck is probably not the right word. I wish I hadn’t seen it. But lucky, certainly is the right word to use in noting that I was running late, and thus there a few minutes after the fact. Had I not been running late, it’s fairly obvious what might have happened. They weren’t discriminate in their targets.
If you’re the type to pray, you might want to thank God that she’s safe. Claire, who lived for a decade in Turkey, says on the topic of attempts to silence controversial speech:
You want me too? Come get me. Because nothing short of killing me — and many more of my kind — will ever shut us up.
Whoa, that is a young woman, like her dad, with exceptional spirit.