Benazir Bhutto assassination-famiiar feelings

In a previous career, I met friends of Bhutto, who have written their own blogs about her death, her career, her devotion to Pakistan and the politics that she inherited from her father. When you get close to people who are great in their own right, and who are friends with other great, historic, or soon-to-be historic figures in world history, well, that's pretty heady stuff. I was fortunate to have worked in the news and talk radio industry and when you work in an industry that provides a conduit for media exposure you meet some very important people, and people who would be important. As a result, when a great person is murdered, I feel for the people I know who knew that person. I had those types of feelings during 9/11, except I actually knew some of the people who died both on a professional and personal level. Today I have the same sense of sorrow for those who shared conversation and friendship with Bhutto as I did for my classmates, and colleagues who lost loved ones in New York and at the Pentagon.

Additionally, I recognize some of the names and voices of those who are asked to comment on her death as I either booked them to appear on talk shows that I produced or represented them as a publicist. Indeed it's something else to feel some link, even if it isn't that direct, to world figures and news events.

I guess it makes me think about the small world we all live in, and how there really aren't that many degrees of separation between all of us, and the powerful few, or elite, who claim control over all of our destinies.