I spent today in the most beautiful place. I was attending a training course called "Away From Violence" at Correymeela, a residential center on the coast. The grass was so green, the sea so deep blue, the sky so bright blue. The clouds still left room in the sky for the sun to shine, and the fushia and hydranga are still in bloom. There were rabbits everywhere. It was this little haven of peace, which makes the rest of today's events even more difficult to grasp.

First thing, in the taxi this morning, we were listening to a BBC newscaster asking Belfast callers how they felt about the taring and feathering of a man in a loyalist estate. Taring and Feathering. They tied him to a post, hooded, and covered him in tar and feathers and made him hold a sign that said "I am a drug dealing scumbag." The debate is over whether or not community should take the law into their own hands when they don't feel like they get enough support from the police. The frighteningly overwhelming response was yes, if the police won't do anything, we will.

Just after dinner tonight, we were called together, and the training drawn to a close due to another tragedy. A youth worker involved with the organization running the training was found dead in his home alongside his wife. Inital thoughts are that he killed his wife and then shot himself. The folks we were with just kept saying what a loss it was, how he was so great with the youth he worked with.

And then, our taxi driver home tonight had to take alternate roads because of rioting. Over football. The (Glasgow) Rangers qualified for the group stages of the Champions League, which apparently is cause for the local Catholic community to riot. As we drove through our roundabout there were at least seven of the big armored police trucks, crowds of people, calm and talking to police, and debris all over the road.

And that's just in Belfast.