why?

I’ve been glued to the TV since waking this morning.  Through cameras mounted on top of Lord and Taylors, two people responsible for the bombings in Boston were identified by face late yesterday afternoon.  By this morning, two suspects had been named; one had been killed; one is still being hunted;, and Boston is in lockdown.  It is a ghosttown.  Here's a photo taken from a window overlooking Boston Common.

It amazes me how responsible the media has been, and how much they find to say when nothing is really happening.  I am also in awe of the law enforcement people who so quickly found the suspects by looking at hours of video.  And how brave so many first responders were in running toward the bomb sites to help rather than away from it.  And for the way the entire Boston community (and the public in general) has pulled together in solidarity.  The goodness in people always prevails over the bad.

I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s.  I was afraid of planes flying overhead.  I was convinced the Russians were about to bomb the US at any moment, so every plane was a potential carrier of devastation.

Then I went through a phase where I was afraid someone was going to break into our house in the middle of the night.  That phase (which has never really ended), followed my reading of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.  It's one reason I like living in a doorman building (though our nighttime doorman, Morgan, is about 80, and sleeps in a chair while on duty;  he would deter no one).

And then came 911.  I stopped feeling safe anywhere.  It’s the world my son has grown up in.  He was only 8 when it happened, but was never scared.  He was too young to realize what was happening.  But now he is older and does.

I am glad we have security cameras all over our city streets.  I am not worried about losing my privacy. I am not doing anything illegal, so catching me on a video surveillance camera won’t reveal anything it shouldn’t.

I don’t live my life in fear; we can’t or evil has won.   America has shown over and over they will not cower to terrorism of any kind.  So it is unfathomable to me that a 19 year old boy, who grew up in Cambridge and had many friends, could walk into a crowd of cheering people, place a bomb in their midst, and calmly walk away, knowing that in seconds those people would be badly injured or dead. 

At least those Russians would have been 3,000 feet above it all.  They wouldn’t have seen our faces.