Paroxysm By Deane Barker • February 13, 2022 • Definition: sudden outburst or intensification of something In medicine, a “paroxysmal attack” is when someone’s previously manageable symptoms suddenly intensify, like a coughing attack, or difficulty breathing. Why I Looked It Up From the lede of a NY Times article about the Bloody Sunday conflict in Northern Ireland. The events themselves took a matter of minutes to unfold in a paroxysm of one-sided gunfire that snuffed out more than a dozen lives, each one of them a new martyr in Northern Ireland’s somber annals of loss. Postscript Added on May 18, 2022 In a discussion about Shaka Zulu (perhaps in The Covenant?) who went on a rampage after his mother died: About 7,000 Zulus were killed in the initial paroxysm of his grief…