There is a quotidian routine to social media. Something that you have to do, like brushing your teeth. I send out my daily letter to subscribers. Tweet it. Post my column on Facebook, sometimes checking the Memories section there to see what I was doing a year, three years, five years, 10 years ago. It's encouraging: look at me! I lived.
Sunday, as I scrolled down memory lane, I saw readers 10 years ago were reacting to a column I wrote about the Boston marathon bombing the day before. "You wrote a wonderful column today," Kelly Adair wrote. "Thank you."
Underneath, in the comments, a decade ago I considerately posted a link to the column, titled, "How do we react to the Boston horror?" The link was dead — these platforms shift, and the Sun-Times stories online are like leaves on a tree: they're there for a time until they're gone.
But there are places where such things gather, journalistic leaf piles. I went into Newsbank. Nothing. Nor our paper's Chorus system, where we write our stories. I tried searching without my byline — sometimes things get lopped off. Nothing. I felt both ignored and singled out. As if some malign, personally antagonistic force had expelled my work even from the endless strata of journalistic sediment. Boo hoo. Poor me.
At this point I should have just shrugged and moved on with my day. Lost. Everything washes away to nothing anyway, someday. But as I like to tell young writers, if you don't care about your writing, nobody does. I found this under "Chicago Sun-Times: Web edition articles" which was a thing from 1996 to 2014. I'm not sure if it is worth the trouble to find, but it does capture a moment. Though I wouldn't go with that opening sentence now, not after the eight years of the Carnival of Cruelty that is Trumpworld.
Most people are kind. Most Americans live in comparative safety. We are lucky that way, generally.
Not lucky Monday however. Not at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon, where two crude bombs sprayed death and mayhem, killing three, including an 8-year-old boy, Martin Richard, and injuring more than 170, including that boy’s sister and mother.
Among the many bad things that such an atrocity radiates is a sense of danger, of terror. This could happen anywhere. Which is what it’s intended to do, as much as the intention behind such malicious insanity can be understood. Which means, as I see it, that part of the pushback, part of what is required of the bystanders, wondering what to make of all this, is to force ourselves to not be terrorized. “Gather your courage,” Virgil writes, “dismiss your grief and fear.”
What are our responsibilities in this situation? The standard attitude, if Facebook and Twitter are any judge, is solemn prayer and goodwill toward the wounded, a flurry of black ribbons and photos of candles and expressions of blanket support for Boston. I’m not sure how that helps, but it couldn’t hurt, and if it makes you feel better, go for it.
Many thought of themselves, their kids, the marathons they’ve run. That’s OK too — I think it’s natural. You don’t have to gin up a false selflessness just because somebody set off a bomb. I certainly brooded over my own experience of the horror. Monday, having gone out on a story in the morning, I relaxed in the afternoon. About 2 p.m. the dog looked at me in that let’s-go fashion, so I took her for a stroll around Northbrook, which was extra pleasant and at last springlike. Pedestrians smiled at the cute dog, a little girl on a scooter cast a longing look. We paused to let Janet, the always-friendly crossing guard, pet her. If you gave the people kitten faces and piglet tails, it could have been a page from a Richard Scarry children’s book. There was one bit of foreshadowing — it would be trite in fiction — before the Landmark Inn: a bottle cap, on the sidewalk, prongs up, and I thought: “The callousness of people! A dog could hurt her paw on something like that!”
Then we crossed the tracks, rounded the corner for home, and heard the terrible news. It seemed a rebuke, for being so happy.
The immediate questions were: How many died — first reports of two seemed a low figure for bombs going off in such a crowd. And who did it? Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen summed up the reasoning in his graceful, anguished column immediately after the blast.
“And we are left with this unnerving proposition,” he wrote. “If it was home-grown, it was probably an aberration, the work of a lunatic. If it was foreign inspired or sponsored, we will never feel safe again in our own town.”
That’s the mind-set, though I’m not sure how valid it is — the logic is, if it’s some twisted American maniac acting out of pure evil and personal damage, you arrest him and the threat is gone, while if it were the product of foreign plotters, then their network will still be in place, planning their next strike.
But the overseas terror threat is real, whether it committed this particular act or not. And if a homegrown terrorist perpetrated this deed, there is an endless supply where he came from. No, comfort must come from within. We have to find a balance where we are vigilant without terrorizing ourselves. The marathon was an easy mark, but locking down marathons does nothing to protect the countless soft targets in a free society: the parades and street fairs and kindergarten recesses, considered safe only because no one attacks them, generally.
The shock came Monday, and will only deepen into even-greater horror as the injured are released, the faces of the dead become familiar to us and — inevitably — the perpetrator or perpetrators are known. Authorities and the media have learned their lesson and are reluctant to speculate, and there is no need. We’ll find out soon enough.
In the meantime, it is important that we remind ourselves of our freedoms, of the open and generous society that most of us live in. Not all — there are the Englewoods and places where some may look up and say, “Bitter medicine, huh?” Twitter was alive with radical sorts drawing a false equivalence between what happened in Boston and the wars in Iraq and elsewhere.
That’s their right. When tragedies occur, you are entitled to your reaction. The loons certainly are unimpeded — I never heard the term “false flag” until some conspiracy nut confronted the governor of Massachusetts, wondering, were this not a state-sponsored hoax, like Newtown. If he can think like that, you too can have your feelings. If your instinct is to post a ribbon, or say a prayer, or shrug, or shake your fist, that’s fine. You can be scared, but that won’t help any. Me, I watched the Bulls game with my kid, and tried not to think about what just happened.
Most people are kind. Most Americans live in comparative safety. We are lucky that way, generally.
Not lucky Monday however. Not at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon, where two crude bombs sprayed death and mayhem, killing three, including an 8-year-old boy, Martin Richard, and injuring more than 170, including that boy’s sister and mother.
Among the many bad things that such an atrocity radiates is a sense of danger, of terror. This could happen anywhere. Which is what it’s intended to do, as much as the intention behind such malicious insanity can be understood. Which means, as I see it, that part of the pushback, part of what is required of the bystanders, wondering what to make of all this, is to force ourselves to not be terrorized. “Gather your courage,” Virgil writes, “dismiss your grief and fear.”
What are our responsibilities in this situation? The standard attitude, if Facebook and Twitter are any judge, is solemn prayer and goodwill toward the wounded, a flurry of black ribbons and photos of candles and expressions of blanket support for Boston. I’m not sure how that helps, but it couldn’t hurt, and if it makes you feel better, go for it.
Many thought of themselves, their kids, the marathons they’ve run. That’s OK too — I think it’s natural. You don’t have to gin up a false selflessness just because somebody set off a bomb. I certainly brooded over my own experience of the horror. Monday, having gone out on a story in the morning, I relaxed in the afternoon. About 2 p.m. the dog looked at me in that let’s-go fashion, so I took her for a stroll around Northbrook, which was extra pleasant and at last springlike. Pedestrians smiled at the cute dog, a little girl on a scooter cast a longing look. We paused to let Janet, the always-friendly crossing guard, pet her. If you gave the people kitten faces and piglet tails, it could have been a page from a Richard Scarry children’s book. There was one bit of foreshadowing — it would be trite in fiction — before the Landmark Inn: a bottle cap, on the sidewalk, prongs up, and I thought: “The callousness of people! A dog could hurt her paw on something like that!”
Then we crossed the tracks, rounded the corner for home, and heard the terrible news. It seemed a rebuke, for being so happy.
The immediate questions were: How many died — first reports of two seemed a low figure for bombs going off in such a crowd. And who did it? Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen summed up the reasoning in his graceful, anguished column immediately after the blast.
“And we are left with this unnerving proposition,” he wrote. “If it was home-grown, it was probably an aberration, the work of a lunatic. If it was foreign inspired or sponsored, we will never feel safe again in our own town.”
That’s the mind-set, though I’m not sure how valid it is — the logic is, if it’s some twisted American maniac acting out of pure evil and personal damage, you arrest him and the threat is gone, while if it were the product of foreign plotters, then their network will still be in place, planning their next strike.
But the overseas terror threat is real, whether it committed this particular act or not. And if a homegrown terrorist perpetrated this deed, there is an endless supply where he came from. No, comfort must come from within. We have to find a balance where we are vigilant without terrorizing ourselves. The marathon was an easy mark, but locking down marathons does nothing to protect the countless soft targets in a free society: the parades and street fairs and kindergarten recesses, considered safe only because no one attacks them, generally.
The shock came Monday, and will only deepen into even-greater horror as the injured are released, the faces of the dead become familiar to us and — inevitably — the perpetrator or perpetrators are known. Authorities and the media have learned their lesson and are reluctant to speculate, and there is no need. We’ll find out soon enough.
In the meantime, it is important that we remind ourselves of our freedoms, of the open and generous society that most of us live in. Not all — there are the Englewoods and places where some may look up and say, “Bitter medicine, huh?” Twitter was alive with radical sorts drawing a false equivalence between what happened in Boston and the wars in Iraq and elsewhere.
That’s their right. When tragedies occur, you are entitled to your reaction. The loons certainly are unimpeded — I never heard the term “false flag” until some conspiracy nut confronted the governor of Massachusetts, wondering, were this not a state-sponsored hoax, like Newtown. If he can think like that, you too can have your feelings. If your instinct is to post a ribbon, or say a prayer, or shrug, or shake your fist, that’s fine. You can be scared, but that won’t help any. Me, I watched the Bulls game with my kid, and tried not to think about what just happened.
—Originally published in the Sun-Times, April 17, 2013
"...protect the countless soft targets in a free society: the parades and street fairs and kindergarten recesses, considered safe only because no one attacks them, generally."
ReplyDeleteUntil they do. Add "seer" to your list of resume skills, Mr. S.
To use the words of Elon Musk it seems our nation is undergoing a rapid, unscheduled, disassembly.
DeleteI am no longer getting Every Goddamn Day to my email inbox. Did something change? I did check spam, etc.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that. If you get it directly from Blogger, that can be very balky, which is one reason I started sending out a daily link. Email your email address to dailysteinberg@suntimes.com and I'll put you on the mailing list.
DeleteNeil is indeed a seer as is Sacha Baron Cohen. Although sometimes a little crude, his movies, particularly "Who is America", expose a sad side of who we are. Inexplicable shootings, bombings, bigotry, greed, bold face lies, etc. are a big part of what this country is. These things overshadow so much of the good and the good people this county has.
ReplyDeleteAt first it may seem callous to turn you thoughts away from a catastrophe and watch a basketball game but sometimes that's the healthiest thing to do at that moment. There will be time to digest it and maybe even try to do something about it.
Mikejaz already referenced this, but speaking of a "bit of foreshadowing," "the countless soft targets in a free society: the parades..." reads even more disturbingly in Chicagoland than it did in 2013.
ReplyDeleteThough the awful trend had certainly been established by that point, the number and variety of armed attacks that would unfold in the decade to follow, exemplified just this week by the senseless driveway / doorstep shootings in the news, might still have been hard to imagine. USA! NRA! USA! NRA!
One year before the bombing, my wife and I strolled that street on a visit. A warm sunny day, tourists like us and others going about their day. Yes, a year before, but on that day I shuddered thinking about those killed and injured and the way that peace and safety can be shattered in an instant. But Neil, your Virgil quote here makes me think that they can harm our bodies, but not our spirit.
ReplyDeleteGreat choice of image, Mr. S.For those unfamiliar with it, it's from "The Four Freedoms, a series of four oil paintings made in 1943 by the American artist Norman Rockwell. The paintings—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear—refer to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's January 1941 "Four Freedoms" State of the Union address, in which he identified essential human rights that should be universally protected. Not just in America, but worldwide.The paintings were reproduced in The Saturday Evening Post over four consecutive weeks in 1943.
ReplyDeleteCan't recall the first time I ever saw "Freedom From Fear"...it had to be a very long time ago. But I remember that my eye was immediately drawn to the headlines on the front page of the newspaper. Since FDR's address was in early 1941, when England was being pounded by German bombers, I've always assumed that the headlines are about the Blitz. (BOMBINGS KILL...and HORROR HITS...) And that these kids are being tucked in on a night in late 1940, or early 1941, before America entered what was not yet being called World War II, and when the war in Europe was still an ocean away.
Upon seeing this familiar image today, I didn't think about terrorist bombs at all. Instead, I couldn't help thinking about Ukraine, which seems to have fallen out of the national consciousness of late, mostly because of the endless, ubiquitous epidemic of mass shootings...about three every two days. I pictured parents tucking in a couple of kids in 2022 or 2023, and thinking about the possibility of another World War, even while holding a newspaper with headlines about the horrors in eastern Europe.
Then I had another jarring thought...that my previous thought was a complete anachronism in the 2020s. First of all, how many evening papers are still around? Few, if any at all. And secondly...how many people in America still get their horror stories from printed newspapers anymore, period? It's not the Forties anymore.
And as for Freedom from Fear...don't make me laugh. Americans today are more nervous, afraid, and trigger-happy than they've ever been in my lifetime. But enough. I've got a Cub game to watch.
Not quite sure what kind of mind games but nail clippers are allowed in carry-on luggage in the United States.
ReplyDeleteMust be a local Steinberg backyard airfield regulation in the People's Republic of Cook Co.
Huh? Wrong day, pal. Nail clippers are for tomorrow...now today. So eager to snark that you went to the wrong venue? Happens occasionally. I've even done it myself a couple of times.
Delete