My phone beeped early this morning with an SMS from my mother: “I’m safe.” She’s in Jakarta on business. Yesterday she was at a meeting just a couple of blocks from the Australian embassy; today there’s a three metre deep crater there. The explosion was heard 15 kilometres away.

Australian officials say one of those seriously injured in the blast was the five-year-son of an Australian father and an Indonesian mother. The boy had been granted Australian citizenship just days ago. His mother died in the explosion, which wrecked buildings across parts of Jakarta’s business district. (BBC)

How can you add more to a sentence that starts “his mother died”? Easier to rail at the disrespect of such a comma than to change the world.