Violence Through a Desert Prism

Here’s the understated yet majestic lede in this poignant essay by Laura Paskus in the current issue of High Country News:

On the outskirts of Albuquerque, the desert has surrendered the bones of 12 young women.

I’m a little uneasy with the larger theme of the piece, though, mainly because I think violence to women need not be compared–even for literary purposes–to a landscape torn up by gas drilling and real estate development.

The brutality that scores of women experience everyday and everywhere in the world–and the shameful response in some cases–is a blight on humanity.  The blight to our treasured landscapes may be heinous to some, but that is another moral realm altogether.