The aftermath of the Boston bombings. Here are a few sad, but honest, observations ... (note to self -- if I ever need to rebrand my blog after tiring of Capricious Cognition, perhaps Sad But Honest would work).
I wish the younger brother had died as well. The reports today suggest that he might have tried to kill himself -- which I actually think might have been a better outcome in light of the costs of what's to come and the attention he'll continue to get.
Breaking news is broken. I saw that headline this week and couldn't agree more. Insatiable appetites for information is clearly a demand of our modern world, and accessibility to talking heads trying to fill the air with opinions non stop during the tragedy is the supply solution -- but view that through the prism of the wild wild west interwebs, and the line between fact and fiction does more than get blurred -- it gets erased.
Suddenly, everyone looks Chechen. I don't mean that to be flippant, but it's a little scary how quickly an event like this gets seared into the conscious, and how human nature's defense mechanism of separating ourselves from others not like us might slip quickly into sweeping generalizations if not kept in check. It reminds me a bit of how, when flying in the more immediate years after 9/11, I would scan the waiting area before boarding a plane and catch myself subconsciously profiling. I found myself doing the same walking beachside this week on vacation.
I started to get frustrated at all of the "manhunt" coverage, and I just kept hearing 19 over and over again in my head -- which made me think that it would better be described as a "boyhunt". I started to feel sympathetic toward the younger brother, thinking about the horror of it all -- wondering if he had really understood his actions or if he had been wrapped up in helping his big brother. In the end, I had to chalk that level of discomfort to watching that part of the event unfold as a factor of my writerly instincts and thinking through the dramatic and dynamic nature of that relationship -- but what really put things in perspective for me was the release of this photo, and the fact that someone much younger than 19 was the true victim and the real innocent "boy" in the story. It's a little chilling to see this final image of those killed and maimed in this attack, and it readjusted my thoughts on that side of this senseless tragedy.
Finally (although use of that word strikes me as disingenuous as nothing about this will be final for quite some time), as processing of all of this information settles in, I have to sum up my feelings by getting some small degree of comfort in knowing that, although evil walks in our midst, so do heroes -- and they outnumber the villains -- and they are charged with the preservation of humanity. Thanks to the hundreds of heroes (first responders, medical staff, the Boston PD, the FBI agents -- and especially the every day citizens who rallied together in this moment) as they continue to restore our faith in each other at times like these when it is shaken. May they become the focus of this story.
BREAKING NEWS IS BROKEN:
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/04/boston_bombing_breaking_news_don_t_watch_cable_shut_off_twitter_you_d_be.html
CONSIDER SUPPORTING THE ONE FUND:
http://onefundboston.org/
PROFILING JUST SOME OF THOSE HEROES:
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20692831,00.html
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