Unhappy anniversary

On this day in 1993, 81 people died in a fire at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas, concluding the federal government's seige. Exactly two years later, Timothy McVeigh set a bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killing 168 people. McVeigh asserted that this was his response to Waco.

Since then, the anniversary has passed pretty unmemorably each year, and I hope that continues. But if there's bad news again, let's all recall the significance of the date in the eyes of some very angry and very ruthless Americans. ''Terrorist'' does not equal "Muslim.''