A couple of thoughts on the Boston Marathon

BostonMarathon

Any event with multiple explosive devices – as this appears to be – is clearly an act of terror, and will be approached as an act of terror. White House

Sitting here, nice and safe – looking at my computer monitor – I realize that my only real relationship with this Boston massacre is what I read and see on the screen. There is blood and carnage everywhere and every shot of that carnage has a person helping (usually several people). Every shot of terror also is a shot of Love.

I know that it is smart not to jump to conclusions because any conclusion includes a direction which may be a misdirection – believing IS seeing afterall – and I want so much for there to be conclusions. I want answers, and not just any answers, I want this to be a terrorist act by a Timothy McVeigh, not some Muslim and that makes my thinking and conclusions pretty unreliable.

As I read that the bombs were made from pressure cookers filled with carpet nails and ball-bearings, I wonder how anybody can hate that much and hold that hate long enough to do this. Hold the hate long enough to plan it in detail: to buy daypacks and pressure cookers, hold the hate long enough to assemble everything, hold the hate long enough to bring it to the finish line and look around at the people who will be killed or maimed. It is easy for me to say that They must be nuts. because I want them to be nuts.

I also realize how lucky it is that Trooper Charlie Hanger stopped McVeigh. It is possible that he would never have been caught and it is possible that who ever did this will never be caught. I don’t think so – with all the resources being poured into this case – and I hope not, but it is possible.

What sticks with me is how small the bomb seemed on television and how much damage it did and I hope they catch the Sons of a Bitches.

 

 

4 thoughts on “A couple of thoughts on the Boston Marathon

  1. Well said, Steve. Myself, I wanted so for it to be a gas leak explosion. Somehow I find it easier to rationalize technology turning on us than do my fellow man.

    1. After the fertilizer explosion in Texas last night, your comments make me blink. So much going boom around us from so many causes.

      Makes me want to stay home in my little house in the woods.

  2. I just read an article about a boy in the local Bay Area town of Martinez who was injured in the attack and the love that surrounds him just brought tears to my eyes. That Martinez is a town Steve and I visited recently as a potential new home, this brought the whole horror closer to home.

    I am sending healing thoughts to young Aaron Hern and all the others injured, physically and emotionally, in this awful, hateful act.

    http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Huge-step-for-Martinez-boy-hurt-in-blasts-4445425.php

    It also occurs to me that Steve and I were out of the country when 9-11 happened and didn’t learn of the event for hours. And how much more impactful this is than 9-11 was for me, seeing a video of the two explosions before understanding anything of what had happened. (And I use “impactful” here consciously, as in a forceable collision, not merely an influence.)

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