August was a brutal month. First, we awoke slowly to the horrors being committed by the Islamic State in northern Iraq against local ethnic and religious minorities as well as foreign journalists â?? horrors which reached a graphic culmination in the murder of journalist James Foley. Then the shooting of Michael Brown left a community grieving and forced our nation to face the old wounds of its own divided and unjust racial history. Finally, the body of Robin Williams was discovered some time after the cherished and beloved actor and comedian took his own life following a long struggle with depression.
Three unrelated tragedies of the past month brought back to our collective memory three persisting truths of the human experience.
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