Reflections on Boston

I've been abnormally silent about last month's bombing at the Boston Marathon. I apologize for that, and can't even excuse it with being tied up by school (I worked on some music and other projects, after all). Now that the dust has settled a bit, here are some of my thoughts.

1) It goes without saying that the bombing itself was horrible, and my heartfelt condolences go to the families of all of the victims, whether they survived or not. It was nothing short of a miracle that it wasn't worse than it was.

Incidentally, if you can spare it, please make a donation to The One Fund, for the survivors and families. Thank you.

2) My first thought was that the bombing was done by one or two lone psychos, but sadly that's not looking completely like the case. Then again...

3) Let's address the first elephant: the media's reporting on this has just sucked. HARD. It's not surprising that The New York Post and the right-wing blogosphere wrongly accused every brown man in Massachusetts of doing this, I expected better from CNN -- and every last one of those agencies should be apologizing LOUDLY for their screw-ups. Especially since at least one of the people they wrongly accused, was found dead in a river, last week -- possibly by suicide.

4) The same goes for the FBI, for apparently missing the obvious warning signs that the real bombers weren't exactly upstanding members of society.

5) But those of you who insist that this was a False Flag Attack (tm) just because you saw someone on a roof at a public event or you personally didn't see the severed limbs of the hundreds of victims... I have some great land in Antarctica for sale, if you are interested in buying some.

Now onto the really thorny one... the lockdown and raids. I'm bound to get some hate mail over this one... but to a point I can accept it. I am not a fan of withholding the reading of Miranda Rights (and those who say the suspects don't deserve them at all, should be careful what they wish for), and I openly acknowledge that ultimately the suspects were found by old-fashioned police work and tips. HOWEVER, it's probably safe to say that the lockdown did slow down the surviving bomber's movements. Furthermore, I wonder how some people would suggest the FBI and Boston PD should have dealt with people who were known to be heavily armed, multiple murderers. I hate to sound like the kind of asshole who would refer to civil rights fans as "bleeding heart liberals" (especially since I loathe that phrase), but REALLY?

Besides, we all know that if there WAS no lockdown, Obama et. al. would be getting a lot of shit for supposedly being soft on terrorism.

Would I be happy if a SWAT team stormed my house, out of the blue? Of course not. But with at least one known terrorist apparently in my neighbourhood, I would understand.

I'm not putting my foot down on this -- especially with more information still coming in -- but that is how I feel about it at this time. Please understand that, if and when you decide to give feedback.