Cognitive Dissonance

One minute, I was being handed a packet of patent legislation that was accompanied by a freshly-handwritten analysis of revisions currently in the process of being put into place which was signed in bright curlique script: Thanks, the Republic of Sudan.

The next minute I found myself reading this email news headline:

Death Toll in Sudan Reaches 180,000.

.

And, well, it's really odd to think of life going on as usual--
at least usual enough for people to be putting together analyses of technical documents and voting on legislative amendments--
in a place where life is clearly *not* going on as usual...