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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

And so it is for the politically and morally bankrupt Kevin McCarthy.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The words do not have to be perfect.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

The new republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Everybody saw this coming.

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You are here: Home / Damn. Just Damn

Damn. Just Damn

by Tom Levenson|  April 19, 20139:29 am| 114 Comments

This post is in: Fucked-up-edness, Rare Sincerity

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Just checking in, really.

Some notes — first, thanks for good thoughts sent our way. My family and I are all OK.  We actually are visiting a very ill relative out of town, so nowhere near any of the mess.  All my wonderful students are OK, I believe, though I can’t imagine their state of mind.

I note that those MIT  students finishing up their freshman year have now seen a terrorist attack, a murder on campus, a town in lockdown — and have as some of their formative childhood memories the fall of the towers when they were around six years old.  They’ve spent almost all of their lives watching the unfolding of wars of choice fought in the case of Iraq on false pretexts.  They seen torture routinized and the only political process they’ve witnessed is one of persistant anti-democratic manouvering pursued by one of the two major parties in our system.

They remain enormously optimistic (or at least have been in my conversations with them up till the last couple of days). They are phenomenally smart, gifted, optimistic. I damn well hope they stay so.  We need them.

Johann_Peter_Hasenclever_-_Die_Dorfschule

Next:  I’m heartsick at the death of the MIT police officer.  I am for the marathon victims as well of course, and more abstractly for the dead on the street in Iraq, in Mogadishu, in…  But I’m like almost everyone, I think; those losses that strike closest to home color the emotions in a particular way.

Campus cops have a strange, really difficult job:  they have to both police and protect in a hothouse setting full of young (and often insufficiently wise older) folk who are not always sure that the rules and norms of the wider world are more than advisory.  Our force at MIT manages that balancing act really, really well, especially given their charge within a university whose traditions include translocating cop cars to, shall we say, interesting coordinates.*  From the report it sounds like our man was gunned down, really just executed, and I couldn’t be more enraged nor heartsick.  I’ll save for a different post the political point I think most of you can probable guess. This isn’t the time.  But you know I’m thinking it.

More close to home stuff.  One of the graduate students in my department, a really sweet, good guy, turns out to have been long time friends with the Richard family and their eight year old son, Martin, killed  in Monday’s bombing.  The connections which bind us all run through all kinds of chance links, but through that pathway that already horrific loss comes closer.  Any murder is hateful, but the killing of kids….I’m not going to write down the words that flow through my head as I cycle back to that.  But I can tell you that, however irrational it may be, my sense of wretched, futile anger ramped up when I learned of the loss refracted through the sorrow of someone I know.

That student and other friends of the family have set up a fund to help the Richards directly — the intention is to cover medical expenses, funeral costs, and whatever else it takes to get through the various horribles coming up over the next while. I’ve thrown a bit that way, and I offer the link up here if anyone feels so moved.  The “One Fund” to offer help to those affected by the bombings (and, I’d guess though I don’t know, those affected by last night/today’s evens) is here. I’d note that folks in town and around the country have already been phenomenally generous, and I’ll add my private thanks to the much grander and more official ones I’m sure will follow.

Last utterly meaningless coincidence.  The manhunt in Watertown going on as  I write this is right smack in the middle of the neighborhood I lived in until 2009.  My wife just picked up a facebook post of a couple of hours ago from  the friends to whom we sold our apartment.  They were as of that time  hiding down in the basement with their two kids.  They’ve been there all night, since they heard the explosions, and they are trying to figure out how to get the little one to sleep, while easing the fear in their older child.  Again, close to home.

I write all this aware that around the world what is striking me as an utter derangement of the way life ought to be is simply the status quo.  I know that the US in general is a phenomenally lucky country, spared so much of the horrors visited on folks around the world — sometimes by the explicit policy and actions of the United States of America. (No need to shout DROOOOONES at me, folks).  And you know what?  I think mine is the right reaction.  This stuff is wrong, unacceptable, to be pushed back at home and everywhere.

I’m rambling. I’ll stop.

I thank this community for its good wishes, its anger, its humor, and perhaps as much as anything else, its simple presence. It’s good to be able to shout, and not simply into the void.  Tip of the hat to y’all — and hug those you love, two footed and four, spend time talking to folks…do all that human stuff.

Pierre-Auguste_Renoir,_Le_Moulin_de_la_Galette

*Other first responders are not immune, either.

Images:  Johann Peter Hasenclever, Jobs as a school teacher, 1845.

Pierre Auguste-Renoir, Bal du moulin de la Galette, 1875

 

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Reader Interactions

114Comments

  1. 1.

    Valdivia

    April 19, 2013 at 9:32 am

    glad to hear you’re ok.

  2. 2.

    dmsilev

    April 19, 2013 at 9:32 am

    Ramble on, Tom. Just glad to hear that you and your family are OK.

    I have family in Brookline and friends throughout the area. All are, thank goodness, OK, but what a horror.

  3. 3.

    gogol's wife

    April 19, 2013 at 9:34 am

    I’m glad you’re okay. This is so sad on so many different levels.

  4. 4.

    Violet

    April 19, 2013 at 9:34 am

    Glad you are okay. Just emailed my friend who lives in Cambridge. Haven’t heard back yet.

  5. 5.

    Raven

    April 19, 2013 at 9:34 am

    Thanks, hang tough.

  6. 6.

    Maude

    April 19, 2013 at 9:35 am

    The media has been a disgrace.

  7. 7.

    scav

    April 19, 2013 at 9:37 am

    We could all do with a ramble. Rant. Ramble.

  8. 8.

    JPL

    April 19, 2013 at 9:37 am

    My friend’s daughter’s condo has been on TV all morning. It appears the terrorists lived down the street. She, hubby, baby and two dogs have been evacuated.

    One thing that concerns me are the hourly workers, who have to do without pay. Would the One Fund be a good place to donate for that?

  9. 9.

    Punchy

    April 19, 2013 at 9:38 am

    Any possible way this kid gets out of the Boston area? If they’re robbing 7/11s, they are likely broke. Gunna be hard to escape with no public transpo unless they guy trunks himself in a friend’s car.

  10. 10.

    JPL

    April 19, 2013 at 9:38 am

    @Raven: How’s it going with your Bride?

  11. 11.

    aimai

    April 19, 2013 at 9:41 am

    Hey Tom, thanks for checking in. We are huddling at home watching Lost Girl and thinking about the horrors of exile and these lost boys, committing pointless crimes of rage and anger. I agree with your point about these kids knowing nothing but this level of international violence and hysteria, political dysfunction and treasounous disloyalty and obstruction by one political party. The kind of rallying around that Bush got from even his political enemies? Its impossible to imagine Obama getting five minutes of trust or slack from the modern Republican party.

  12. 12.

    Raven

    April 19, 2013 at 9:41 am

    @JPL: holding pattern, they sent someone in to tell me things were cool and that the doc would brief me ASAP.
    Thx

  13. 13.

    Face

    April 19, 2013 at 9:43 am

    This guy on the lam is a medical student, or is his dad just full of shit?

  14. 14.

    Cermet

    April 19, 2013 at 9:43 am

    I understand where you are comming from – my daughter will be attending MIT this fall and was there just before the bombing in Boston. As such I have exchanged e-mails with the head of the MIT campus police so I indirectly know someone on that force (and really, really hope they are not the officer who was murdered.) This Officer and I share a scientific forum so he was being super kind to me by keeping an eye out for my daughter so she’d be safe there. Just the way those guys are and how thoughtful they are, as well. Tragic that those animals murdered, in cold blood, someone that had nothing to do with their sick goals. These are cold blooded mass murders – just hope the last one does not kill anyone else.

  15. 15.

    Anya

    April 19, 2013 at 9:44 am

    I am glad you and the family are okay!

  16. 16.

    c u n d gulag

    April 19, 2013 at 9:45 am

    DITTO, glad you’re ok!!!

    When you get back and talk to your students, let us know what they think of this.

    To me, shutting down cities and towns for one, or even a handful of suspects, is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY OVERBOARD!!!

  17. 17.

    Violet

    April 19, 2013 at 9:45 am

    @Raven: Is your wife in surgery? Hope everything goes well.

  18. 18.

    Tim F.

    April 19, 2013 at 9:47 am

    Was waiting for this post. Thank god you guys are ok and out of danger.

  19. 19.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 19, 2013 at 9:48 am

    @Punchy: Any possible way this kid gets out of the Boston area? If

    Hard to fathom a nineteen year old has held out this long

  20. 20.

    Walker

    April 19, 2013 at 9:48 am

    @Face:

    He is at U Mass Amherst. I am assuming that he is pre-med and the parents do not know the difference (other countries start medical school in undergrad).

  21. 21.

    Raven

    April 19, 2013 at 9:49 am

    @Violet: yea, thanks. It’s funny, the spinal surgery that saved my ass 38 years ago is almost barbaric by today’s standards.

  22. 22.

    YellowJournalism

    April 19, 2013 at 9:51 am

    You just want to scream to this kid: “Your brother is dead. This isn’t worth it. You can stop the madness. Turn yourself in!”

    I feel bad for the child this guy once was and wish that he would allow justice to happen in a courtroom rather than at the end of a gun or bomb. I think the victims and their families deserve to know how this went down, and I’m under no delusions that we will ever fully know or understand why.

    Stay safe, Boston BJers.

  23. 23.

    beltane

    April 19, 2013 at 9:52 am

    @Face: At 19 he is too young to be a medical student. He may have intended to go to medical school in the future but now he has no future.

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    April 19, 2013 at 9:53 am

    Glad you’re okay, Tom.

  25. 25.

    Raven

    April 19, 2013 at 9:54 am

    @YellowJournalism: I think that ship sailed.

  26. 26.

    handsmile

    April 19, 2013 at 9:54 am

    Good to hear from you! (Would we could all “ramble” so thoughtfully.) To be sure, it’s been a difficult year for the MIT community.

  27. 27.

    Elizabelle

    April 19, 2013 at 9:56 am

    Tom: glad you are safe. And very sad about the MIT cop, and particularly about the loss of little Martin Richard. Beautiful kid.

    NOW:

    I can see the Renoir painting, but not the Waldmuller.

    When you have time, can you review the blogpost to see if you can make the Waldmuller visible? (I get a question mark in midst of a blank space. Using a MacBook.)

    Can other BJuicers see both illustrations?

  28. 28.

    Skepticat

    April 19, 2013 at 9:57 am

    I’m inordinately depressed that there is an Islamic connection here. Obviously these people don’t care or realize what terrible damage they’ve done to their own people. More ammunition for xenophobia, more “reasons” for hatred of “The Other,” no matter who the other may be. The home of the free has become so much the land of the craven.

  29. 29.

    Raven

    April 19, 2013 at 9:57 am

    @Elizabelle: same as you, I thought it was the hospital wireless

  30. 30.

    Gin & Tonic

    April 19, 2013 at 9:58 am

    @Cermet: It’s really sad about the MIT cop, because back in the 70’s, at least, the primary responsibility those guys had was to make sure the MIT kids didn’t get in trouble with Cambridge police. It was more of a soft, community relations-type gig.

  31. 31.

    Randy P

    April 19, 2013 at 9:59 am

    Got an email report from my brother in Newton. Not really that close to Watertown but he says the whole city is in lockdown and they are ordered to stay indoors. “Like a war zone”. I too am sickened about the campus cop. They aren’t even armed are they? I just found out he was 26 years old.

    Still wondering what triggered all this. The public’s knowledge starts with the holdup and car jacking, but to me that sound like they were already on the run. The FBI must have been closing in.

  32. 32.

    Elizabelle

    April 19, 2013 at 10:00 am

    The MIT cop was 26 years old.

  33. 33.

    Tom Levenson

    April 19, 2013 at 10:01 am

    @Skepticat: @Raven: I get the Waldmuller on Firefox, not on Safari (on a Mac). I’ll try delete-and-reinsert, see what happens.

    And thanks to everyone for so many kind thoughts sent our way. Back at you. Bad, bad times for everyone.

    ETA: Hmmm. Just did the reload. Didn’t work. Still got that Firefox/Safari mismatch. I’m going to go grab a different illustration and see if that works. A few minutes, folks.

  34. 34.

    MomSense

    April 19, 2013 at 10:01 am

    Thank you for your thoughtful, rant/ramble/post. This is just heartbreaking for so many reasons and for so many people.

  35. 35.

    Epicurus

    April 19, 2013 at 10:03 am

    Mr. Levenson, may I call you “Tom”? You are without doubt one of the most talented, thoughtful writers on this site, and that’s saying a lot. Thank you so much for sharing your insights and especially all that great art. In this ridiculous world, your posts are an island of calm and thought, both much needed at this juncture. Just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your writing and your participation in this blog.

  36. 36.

    MikeBoyScout

    April 19, 2013 at 10:03 am

    Stay safe Tom, and thanks for the words.
    And thanks for the update on Freshman life. Apparently our generation could not help but bullocks it up more. The change we need and deserve is up to them now, and we rely on our teachers to lead the way forward out of these unnecessary dark ages.

  37. 37.

    smintheus

    April 19, 2013 at 10:03 am

    @Skepticat: For me the most evil aspect was the seemingly deliberate targeting of children. If the bombers were Chechnyans, that becomes a little more understandable. It’s been one of the things that seems to set Chechnyan terrorism apart as an especially virulent form operating largely by its own ‘rules’.

  38. 38.

    Elizabelle

    April 19, 2013 at 10:03 am

    So many lost futures, so much destroyed potential.

    And for what?

  39. 39.

    Citizen_X

    April 19, 2013 at 10:04 am

    I hate to break people’s hearts more, but here’s a portrait of the dead MIT cop, Sean Collier, of Somerville, all of 26 years old.

  40. 40.

    Mike E

    April 19, 2013 at 10:04 am

    And on a different note: Happy birthday, Ashley Judd! (Just heard on Morning Edition)

  41. 41.

    Skepticat

    April 19, 2013 at 10:06 am

    @Tom Levenson: I get both on Firefox on a MacBookPro, Snow Leopard.

  42. 42.

    Bruce S

    April 19, 2013 at 10:07 am

    @Maude:

    “Virtual war zone” just came out of my TeeVee. Way to go – feeding frenzy. The terrorists win!

  43. 43.

    Elizabelle

    April 19, 2013 at 10:07 am

    @Citizen_X:

    So very sad. RIP.

  44. 44.

    aimai

    April 19, 2013 at 10:08 am

    @Citizen_X:
    Another baby, killed by children. What a heartbreaking picture. Only 26!

  45. 45.

    smintheus

    April 19, 2013 at 10:10 am

    The young son of a former student was badly injured in the bombing. This happens to be one of the students who stands out most in my memory, not just because of his intelligence and thoughtfulness, but especially because he was such an outstanding and good-hearted person. So it’s really shocking to learn that this great guy’s family was victimized by such evil.

  46. 46.

    MomSense

    April 19, 2013 at 10:11 am

    @aimai:

    I can’t take it. Just so unbelievably sad.

  47. 47.

    arguingwithsignposts

    April 19, 2013 at 10:11 am

    @smintheus:

    For me the most evil aspect was the seemingly deliberate targeting of children.

    Where? They were bombs planted at the finish line of the Marathon. Please, for the love of whatever is holy, stop jumping to conclusions (or “what ifs …”) based on nationality and perceived tactical/strategic aims when there is not a shred of proof of such connections.

  48. 48.

    Tom Levenson

    April 19, 2013 at 10:13 am

    New pic visible to everyone? It is to me…

  49. 49.

    Randy P

    April 19, 2013 at 10:15 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: Their nationality was American. They grew up in Boston. They’ve been here since they were 7 and 8 years old for pete’s sake.

  50. 50.

    BethanyAnne

    April 19, 2013 at 10:16 am

    @TvsAndyDaly “When an Elvis impersonator trying to kill the President is the least interesting news story of the week, you know some shit went down.”

  51. 51.

    Elizabelle

    April 19, 2013 at 10:16 am

    @Tom Levenson:

    Yes, can see the Waldmuller well. Thank you.

    Had never seen this artwork before, so most interesting.

  52. 52.

    NotMax

    April 19, 2013 at 10:16 am

    @smintheus

    Not relegated to just Chechens.

    Dunblane, Scotland. Meihekou, China. Newark, New Jersey. Houston, Texas.

    Bath Township, Michigan.

    And too many, many more to list here.

  53. 53.

    The Moar You Know

    April 19, 2013 at 10:17 am

    I’m inordinately depressed that there is an Islamic connection here.

    @Skepticat: So am I. I work with wingnuts, they’ll be here in an hour, and I’m going to get unending shit for daring to suggest it might be one of their tribe when all along it was the Evil Muslim Caliphate, just like Fox News told ’em it was.

    That’s personal and I can deal with that. In comparison I’ve got it pretty easy – I would not want to be a Muslim in the United States today, or in the foreseeable future, for that matter.

  54. 54.

    Elizabelle

    April 19, 2013 at 10:17 am

    @BethanyAnne:

    Ain’t that the truth!

  55. 55.

    CaseyL

    April 19, 2013 at 10:17 am

    Very relieved to hear that you and yours are OK, Tom.

    Woke up to the surreal: NPR’s coverage of the manhunt, as heard through the whirring of my bedroom fan. Between the fan noise and being half-asleep, it sounded as though the police were converging on a giant 7-11 warehouse.

    Reality is even more surreal: a major American city on lockdown, one suspect dead and the other at large, both of them having apparently strewing IEDs everywhere as they fled.

    Not to mention the speed with which the suspects were identified, once their pictures were released. The TV show NCIS frequently uses facial recognition; I always thought the version they used was SFX hocus-pocus. NPR reported on the real-life version, which sounds even more science-fictiony: you can search images by age, gender, and even distinguishing characteristics like color of baseball cap. The tech available to law enforcement is mind-boggling.

    What a week…

  56. 56.

    aimai

    April 19, 2013 at 10:17 am

    I went to look at this again and found that I had never read it in its entirety. It strikes me with renewed force because of the sense we have now that “six degrees of separation” is not a plot device for a theater piece but a reality–here in Boston, in the scientific community, in the academic community, in the runner’s community, we see multiple, overlapping, connections that make each death and each reported injury strike us afresh and make us aware of the spider web of relationships that bind us all together. And I think, too, of this 19 year old kid: he was at school with children I know at Cambridge Rindge and Latin. He would have dipped in and out of our local library, right there at CRLS, and walked across Harvard Yard to get where he was going every day.

    PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him. And perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does, belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingraffed into that body, whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me; all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another; as therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come; so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness….No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

  57. 57.

    arguingwithsignposts

    April 19, 2013 at 10:17 am

    @Randy P: Sorry, ethnic origins. Is that better? My point stands.

  58. 58.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    April 19, 2013 at 10:18 am

    We didn’t start the fire
    It was always burning
    Since the world’s been turning
    We didn’t start the fire
    No we didn’t light it
    But we tried to fight it

  59. 59.

    scav

    April 19, 2013 at 10:18 am

    @Tom Levenson: Yes. And thanks for it and all the rest.

  60. 60.

    Mike E

    April 19, 2013 at 10:19 am

    Wow…the host of local show Hear and Now Robin Young had a prom reception in her back yard for her nephew, and ‘suspect 2’ was there…nice kid (cliché, I know). Her show replaces Talk of the Nation later this year.

  61. 61.

    EconWatcher

    April 19, 2013 at 10:19 am

    They really, really need to catch this twisted kid alive. Have to find out if they had any help.

    Does anyone else remember the mysterious John Doe No. 3 from the Murrah bombing? As I recall, the same witnesses who gave such an exact description of McVeigh that an artist could draw him perfectly also described, in very precise terms, someone who was with him in the truck, and who could not have been Terry Nichols (because Nichols could not have been there). But the government later took the position that these witnesses were mistaken, apparently because it would have made the McVeigh trial messy to acknowledge a loose end. I’ve always wondered if John Doe No. 3 is still among us.

  62. 62.

    Raven

    April 19, 2013 at 10:19 am

    Doc says ther e was mos def bone on the nerve and this should REALLY make her better!

  63. 63.

    smintheus

    April 19, 2013 at 10:20 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: The timing of the bombs suggests they were trying to kill as many family members of late finishing runners as possible. This is not really jumping to conclusions. Look at the ages of the known victims; most are in their 20s or younger.

  64. 64.

    Face

    April 19, 2013 at 10:20 am

    Not that this is a surprise, but conservatives gearing up to crush immigration reform. After today, I’m guessing that’s gunna be even easier.

  65. 65.

    Elizabelle

    April 19, 2013 at 10:21 am

    Interesting comment by James Fox: that brothers’ photos were released after the president had left town and memorial service crowd had dispersed.

    I was worried yesterday that the bombs might have been intended to draw the president and put him at risk.

  66. 66.

    RoonieRoo

    April 19, 2013 at 10:22 am

    Thank you for checking in with us Tom. It’s always a relief when you can tick off a box in your head that this person/family is safe.

  67. 67.

    Randy P

    April 19, 2013 at 10:22 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: I’m not arguing with you. I’m pre-emptively reacting to the crap that’s going to start pouring out of the right-wing wurlitzer any moment now. Or you could characterize it as arguing with the voices in my head.

  68. 68.

    Elizabelle

    April 19, 2013 at 10:23 am

    @Raven:

    Great to hear.

  69. 69.

    mai naem

    April 19, 2013 at 10:23 am

    This is awful. I don’t understand the motivation behind people doing stuff like this. Do they not think of the consequences? BTW,I happened to be up last night and they were talking about Suni Triptha(sp?) and Mike Mulogeta(sp?) being ID’d as the bombers. 3hrs later its a couple of Russian/Chechnyan kids. WTF?

  70. 70.

    arguingwithsignposts

    April 19, 2013 at 10:23 am

    @smintheus:

    deliberate targeting of children.

    It was obvious they were trying to injure/kill a large number of people congregated in one place, most of whom would have been family members by default. That’s not “targeting children.” Blowing up a bomb in a place where children congregate or a school would be targeting children.

  71. 71.

    Raven

    April 19, 2013 at 10:23 am

    @EconWatcher: there is about zero chance

  72. 72.

    Raven

    April 19, 2013 at 10:23 am

    @EconWatcher: there is about zero chance

  73. 73.

    Violet

    April 19, 2013 at 10:23 am

    @Raven: So glad to hear that! Is she out of surgery now?

  74. 74.

    Elizabelle

    April 19, 2013 at 10:24 am

    @EconWatcher:

    Interesting point re John Doe 3. A very loose string.

  75. 75.

    Raven

    April 19, 2013 at 10:25 am

    @Violet: she’s not with me yet but the surgeon visited me so, yes.

    Thanks

  76. 76.

    JPL

    April 19, 2013 at 10:25 am

    @Randy P: A high school friend of the younger one described him as American.

  77. 77.

    martha

    April 19, 2013 at 10:25 am

    @Raven: wow, that’s great news–that she’ll get relief and feel better!

  78. 78.

    smintheus

    April 19, 2013 at 10:26 am

    @NotMax: Didn’t mean to imply it is only Chechen terrorists who target children. It’s just that kidnapping and killing kids has been way more common among them than many other terrorists.

  79. 79.

    WereBear

    April 19, 2013 at 10:26 am

    @Raven: Most excellent news!

    This whole thing is so sad, and completely pointless. Nothing was accomplished by their actions except to include their own deaths and destruction in the general deaths and destruction.

    This was a dark fantasy; what they wanted, whatever that was, would have never come to pass.

  80. 80.

    arguingwithsignposts

    April 19, 2013 at 10:27 am

    @Raven: great news, man, and hoping for a speedy recovery and renewed health.

  81. 81.

    aimai

    April 19, 2013 at 10:27 am

    I’d like to point out that these guys chose to go ahead with the bombing personally, knowing and seeing exactly who would be killed or maimed by it. That’s a level of sociopathy, ultimately, that is quite distinctive. Say what you want about bombers in general but planting a bomb in advance, when the site is empty, and triggering it from a distance are really different acts than dropping it in front of/next to the victims in a crowd full of children and elderly people.

  82. 82.

    Raven

    April 19, 2013 at 10:28 am

    Thanks all

  83. 83.

    Violet

    April 19, 2013 at 10:29 am

    @Raven: Guessing she’ll have to go to Recovery to wake up and be monitored for a bit before you get to see her. Hopefully she’ll feel much better now.

  84. 84.

    dslak

    April 19, 2013 at 10:29 am

    For those keeping a lookout for John Doe #3, remember that the real killers of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman are still out there also, too.

  85. 85.

    smintheus

    April 19, 2013 at 10:29 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: I think you’re trying to avoid an obvious inference that they were hoping among other things to kill a lot of children.

  86. 86.

    Elizabelle

    April 19, 2013 at 10:29 am

    @WereBear:

    You really must write that guest post for Rumproast.

    Or maybe for here.

  87. 87.

    Tom Levenson

    April 19, 2013 at 10:30 am

    @Raven: Yup — belateldy adding my cheers at your good news.

  88. 88.

    Skepticat

    April 19, 2013 at 10:33 am

    @Randy P: I don’t believe–according to the Boston Globe, at least–that’s exactly correct.
    http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/04/19/bombing-suspects-were-local-normal-immigrants/AGztkXv4Y9b6sfAsVzcDQO/story.html

    It saddens me that other “normal immigrants” will suffer so much backlash for this.

  89. 89.

    The Moar You Know

    April 19, 2013 at 10:33 am

    Not that this is a surprise, but conservatives gearing up to crush immigration reform. After today, I’m guessing that’s gunna be even easier.

    @Face: The House wasn’t going to pass it anyway, no matter what, so I’m not sure that “crushing” it was made any easier by this.

    If we wound up with any kind of immigration laws that would require us to look more closely as to who we’re letting in the country, and why, I’d be all for that. But history has shown us already that’s not what happens here.

  90. 90.

    Raven

    April 19, 2013 at 10:33 am

    @Violet: yes! She has been such a trooper doing all these bullshit therapies! I’ve thought all along it was what was needed.

  91. 91.

    Randy P

    April 19, 2013 at 10:35 am

    @aimai: One of the things being reported this morning is that Jeff Bauman who was seen in news photos being taken away in a wheelchair and who has lost both legs, gave the FBI a description. The guy looked him in the eye as he dropped the bag at Bauman’s feet. The bag went off 2 minutes later.

    So yeah, they had no problem connecting personally with their victims.

  92. 92.

    the Conster

    April 19, 2013 at 10:42 am

    @Punchy:

    New reports are saying the bombers used the hijacked car owner’s ATM card to get cash.

  93. 93.

    handsmile

    April 19, 2013 at 10:46 am

    Excellent (informative) article from the Guardian’s former Moscow correspondent, Luke Harding, “Boston bombing link to Chechnya, if established, would be unprecedented”:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/19/boston-bombing-link-chechnya-unprecedented

    (Do appreciate the “if established” bit; how refreshingly measured)

  94. 94.

    BGinCHI

    April 19, 2013 at 10:47 am

    Late to this thread, with an early rising toddler then glued to the coverage of this stuff going down.

    Was thinking about Tom and others in and around Boston and glad so far there hasn’t been more death.

    Tom, glad you’re OK.

  95. 95.

    Keith G

    April 19, 2013 at 10:50 am

    Tom, you mention all the tragedy and dark events that your freshmen have witnessed. Remember that they have also sang a lot of songs, played a lot of games, and ate a lot of ice cream cones. if our economy doesn’t go third world before they can pay off their student loans, they will be OK.

  96. 96.

    aimai

    April 19, 2013 at 10:55 am

    @Keith G:

    That’s a weirdly hostile remark to make. The MIT students are an international bunch and a cross section of the country ethnically and economically. Plenty of them have come from a “third world” situation and what people have been trying to describe here is that no one is safe from connection to violence and tragedy. Tom is right to point towards a distinctive feature of this rising generation: that within the seeming stability of the US (if that’s even their country) is a history of political anarchy and dysfunction, of war and pseudo-war, that has to shape their political imagination.

  97. 97.

    BGinCHI

    April 19, 2013 at 10:57 am

    @Keith G: WTF are you talking about?

    Dumbass.

  98. 98.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 19, 2013 at 11:03 am

    @aimai: @BGinCHI: I think sanctimonious Contraritroll is trying to put a warm and fuzzy spin on his usual schtick

  99. 99.

    mai naem

    April 19, 2013 at 11:04 am

    @aimai: I didn’t read the comment as hostile. I think he was making a comment about US college students being able to find jobs when they graduate and pay off their school loans, in an economy where mutlinationals are offshoring jobs – even good jobs.

  100. 100.

    arguingwithsignposts

    April 19, 2013 at 11:09 am

    @smintheus:

    I think you’re trying to avoid an obvious inference that they were hoping among other things to kill a lot of children.

    I think you’re drawing connections in thin air. Whatever.

  101. 101.

    smintheus

    April 19, 2013 at 11:15 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: They looked around and saw all the kids who would in fact be blown up in a few moments. How can that be anything other than intentional?

  102. 102.

    Keith G

    April 19, 2013 at 11:21 am

    @aimai: I am sorry but, your need to find fault and read hostility in that remark says more about the reader then it does about the writer.

    I am always struck by the wonderfully open mindedness and resilience of the young students I have worked with. They face hard times yet they find ways to find joy – unlike others I seem to bump into here abouts.

    I guess you disagree.

  103. 103.

    BGinCHI

    April 19, 2013 at 11:32 am

    @Keith G: Oh, so you’re just a shitty writer who can’t make a clear point.

    Good effort at blaming readers though.

  104. 104.

    NotMax

    April 19, 2013 at 11:38 am

    @sminthus

    How can that be anything other than intentional?

    Easily.

    Intentional would be stopping to do a check and then thinking “Nope. Mainly seniors here, better move on.” Videos as released show them walking with deliberation to a location.

    The locations chosen? More crowded areas, period. Not due to the demographics of the crowd, but because it was a crowd.

    /Occam’s Razor

  105. 105.

    Keith G

    April 19, 2013 at 11:42 am

    @BGinCHI: Trying to shorten that statement down to its most compact essence:

    Tom was saying that those students had seen a lot of trouble but that he still had hopes for them. I added on yes hard times, but also good times. So, like Tom I am also optimistic for them, unless our foolish government allows our economy to tank.

    Yes indeed, ideas worthy of excoriation.

  106. 106.

    NotMax

    April 19, 2013 at 11:46 am

    Talk about denial: Tsarnaev aunt.

  107. 107.

    Gian

    April 19, 2013 at 11:52 am

    I can’t so much as think of Martin Richards without crying. My son will be eight in about three months. And he always wants to know why people are mean

    http://sandiegofreepress.org/2013/04/no-more-hurting-people-peace/

  108. 108.

    aimai

    April 19, 2013 at 11:54 am

    @Keith G:

    This doesn’t make any sense, even on your own supposed terms. Tom said nothing about the kids being joyless or afraid or about their job prospects in the future. Your comment, if that is what you meant to say, was off point and a corrective to something that obviously didn’t need correcting. It also was extremely hostile in that it implied that all those kids were priviliged and pampered before they came to MIT. That is really not the case. One thing you might have learned by listening to what people told you after the bombing is that a lot of people who don’t look like it have been touched by violence. I facilitate a new mom’s group in the boston area and a number of women who were not present at the Marathon by accident or luck dissolved into tears–one was a survivor of 9/11 and one was a survivor (although she had lost a close friend) of the Virginia Tech shooting. You are a complete asshole for failing to grasp that appearances can be deceiving. We and these kids are surrounded by violence and uncertainity.

  109. 109.

    Keith G

    April 19, 2013 at 12:15 pm

    @aimai: With respect, I really think you are trying to read too much into a rather simple sentiment and because of that you are trying to create a motive that wasn’t there. I wasn’t correcting Tom, I was adding on. The vast majority of those students have enough of a cushion of positive life experiences to be very resilient. I I believe that is true of their cohort worldwide.

    I just hope we leave them with a future worthy of their possibilies.

  110. 110.

    karen

    April 19, 2013 at 12:34 pm

    Tom!

    So glad you’re ok! When I heard about MIT, you were actually the first person I thought about!

    ‘I’m watching BBC News and their coverage of this and one of their uncles was interviewed and distancing himself from then and their families. I didn’t even know I had cousins going to MIT but it’s a relief to know they’re ok.

    I’m not saying that BBC news has no agenda or slant but at least it’s less political.

  111. 111.

    WereBear

    April 19, 2013 at 12:35 pm

    @Elizabelle: You really must write that guest post for Rumproast.
    Or maybe for here.

    Thanks!

    If elected, I will serve :)

  112. 112.

    canuckistani

    April 19, 2013 at 12:52 pm

    Renoir soothes my soul.
    Thanks

  113. 113.

    johnny aquitard

    April 19, 2013 at 1:22 pm

    @aimai: Makes sense to me. I’d think that planting a bomb when a site is empty would provide some emotional distance. You don’t see who is going to be next to it. You don’t see their faces, you never make eye contact, you avoid any connection to basic humanity, human being to human being.

    These guys’ basic humanity was miles away when their victims were right next to them. When they placed the bomb bags they could see the faces of the people, make eye contact with those who they knew were likely going to be be maimed and killed.

    That’s so damn cold it’s absolute zero.

  114. 114.

    karen

    April 19, 2013 at 1:44 pm

    I don’t think they’re sociopaths. They’re fanatics.

    Then again, it can be the same. The question is, WHY? What made that particular Boston marathon be bomb central during this particular year? There is so much that is missing.

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