On Boston

In the wake of yesterday's tragedy in Boston, there's always a struggle to figure out what to say- but after a day or so to reflect, I've come up with the following:

1.  Patton Oswalt probably sums it up the best.

2.  In Dispatch, if we're not keeping an eye on an Iowa Football or Basketball game, we're usually watching CNN- who has been less than impressive in recent months but yesterday, I have to admit there was a certain amount of restraint on their part- especially early on- and while the blanket media coverage and the frankly pointless eye witness interviews got tiresome after awhile (after a certain point it all becomes what one internet commentator called 'crisis porn' which seems pretty accurate to me.  I've got no problem with journalists interviewing eyewitnesses to something like this but inane questions like 'What was it like for you?' are just pointless.  What do you expect someone to say after something like this?  'Yes, I thought it was the best thing EVER!'  Come on now.)  But all in all, it was better than I thought it was going to be.

3. My thoughts remain with the victims, their friends, their families and especially the First Responders that responded to the scene. (As our Department has two bomb detection K-9's, I was glad to see some shout-outs for their work yesterday especially from the German Shepherd Community.)

4.  Glenn Greenwald's column was particularly ironic, I thought.  While it's true, there are always people that rush to look for Muslims behind tragedies such as this and there's a certain amount of fear-mongering on the part of the media in the quest for ratings, there's always some hippy-dippy leftist that wants to find a way to blame the evils of American Imperialism for something like this.  In this case, it's apparently Mr. Greenwald that's decided to tilt at that particular windmill.  (Greenwald gets some points from me for being a vocal critic and consistent critic of Gitmo and America's use of drones- something that's carried over from Bush The Younger's Administration into President Obama's- but not much else.)  It's as tiresome as those that want to score political points off of tragedies like this, blame Muslims for tragedies like this or fear monger up some ratings for their television network and it needs to stop.

5.  In the midst of unspeakable horror, the best of humanity was on display yesterday.  I take a great deal of comfort in that.