What is an atrocity? Appalling or atrocious condition, quality, or behavior; monstrousness. n 1: the quality of being shockingly cruel and inhumane [syn: atrociousness, barbarity, barbarousness, heinousness] 2: an act of atrocious cruelty [syn: inhumanity]. A plane falls from the sky, and a father, a mother, brother, sister, or a friend is lost in the ruins... Is that atrocious? A child, playing in the yard of a family owned home, changing an imaginary diaper on an imaginary child of her own, wishing for the day that life will have finally unveiled that which it has to offer, struck by the debris and shrapnel from an IED targeting an apparently offensive military occupation, designed by a father or brother angry for never having the chance to unveil what he believed life had to offer his own family. Which part of that scenario is atrocious? How about any citizen of this planet that does not care to even recognize these sorts of events, or why they happen, or how to prevent them from continuing... Due to his or her own desires to achieve comfort in this very uncomfortable place, the individual denies that any consequence of such atrocities are important to their own day to day existence. Too much of that sort of news is enough to depress anyone, right? Well, to me the greatest atrocious act is of those who choose blindness as a form of comfort, and expect that blindness will lead any further toward a comfortable place for every citizen of earth.