This could have been a post about terror, or hatred. It could have been a post about international politics and religion. But for the sake of my own spirit's health, it is a post about two women facing the news of a tragedy across an ocean and across thousands of miles.

There's a lot going on in the mediaverse these days, and bloggers have a lot to say about all of it. Here's a cooks' tour of some of the issues and stories attracting comment from blogging women (and some men):

News reports say that federal authorities are confident that a top research scientist charged with creating new defenses against biological agents is responsible for the 2001 mailings of letters containing anthrax spores that kiled 5 people and wounded 17 more. However, in the wake of that scientist's apparent July 29 suicide, friends, colleagues and independent observers are skeptical.

I had never imagined my first post from India would be about a series of terror attacks in two economically vibrant cities, 1,000-odd miles apart, which claimed over 50 lives and left more than 100 wounded.

I am not kidding with that title. In the Katy Independent School District, a 12-year-old student, Shelby Sendelbach, was given a very harsh punishment for writing the words "I Love Alex" in permanent baby blue marker on her school gym's wall. The district classified her act as a Level 4 infraction. What is a level 4 infraction? Well, in the eyes of the district, it ranks up there with terroristic threats. Meaning, she could have called in a bomb threat or brought a gun to school and received the same punishment. That punishment was a mandatory four-month assignment to an alternative school. Think about that for a moment. An innocent (yes, destructive, but not threatening) act of vandalism was seen as a terroristic threat. Did she write, "I will kill all teachers?" Not at all. She declared her preteen love for a boy named Alex. Pause and think this over. Terrorism. Writing on a wall. Bomb threat. Writing on a wall.