Boston on my Mind

A few years ago I was hired to perform for the John Hancock Insurance company. They are a major sponsor of the Boston Marathon and my performance was part of a banquet the night before the race.  I remember how much of an event it was and how everyone was excited about the next day's activities.

I was offered a chance to stay over and see the race from the sponsors area but chose to return home instead.  The airport was totally empty that day and it was an easy flight home.

Now this act of terrorism has inserted itself into the collective consciousness of the race. I have been nursing a sore throat and cold over the last couple of days so I was taking it easy all day yesterday.  Suddenly several alerts on my wireless devices sounded. The ABC news notification and the CNN notifications went off on my smart phone and my tablet. I realized that we are in an era when bad news travels immediately and wirelessly. I turned on the television to see actual pictures of the finish line bombs going off and a 78 year old man crumbling to the ground. Like the black horse on a merry go round that image would repeat itself on most every station over and over for the next 24 hours.  

There is really no concrete information so the same images and sound bites are repeated over and over.  I became irritated with several of the anchor pundits who had nothing to add but kept trying to make it a story about themselves and what they saw. 

Of course some networks skewed the story to fit their own agenda. Several over zealous reporters were postulating that it was a "False Flag" operation by the shadow government to gain some advantage over the gun lobby to take away our firearms.   I finally turned off the television figuring that if there was a break in the case... all my wireless devices would once again sound the alarm. 

Since there are no leads at this point and no one has claimed responsibility... I would suggest that as awful as it is, it is not a massive conspiracy foreign or domestic.  If it was,  the pre-planned story would have already been fed to the shocked public. 

Case in point.  After John Kennedy was shot in Dallas, with no actual eye witnesses nor video surveillance pictures, police had a suspect in custody in less than an hour. Although most people do not believe the suspect acted alone and he was killed before he could even be charged with the crime Lee Harvey Oswald is officially sanctioned as the "lone gunman" 50 years later. Somewhat similar to the picture of Mohammad Atta and his gang of terrorist that was plastered all over the television hours after the plane attack on the World Trade Center twin towers. 

In contrast, Richard Jewel was taken into custody and given a national perp walk for the Atlanta Olympics bombing within a few hours of the blast.  He wasn't involved and it took seven years to catch the actual killer. The actual bomber turned out to be a disturbed idiot with a political agenda. Like Aurora and Sandy Hook the Boston Bombing probably will be found to be the work of a disturbed idiot trying to make a statement.

One hopes that this bomber or bombers are as stupid as Timothy McVey who was caught driving without a license plate on his "get away" car. In the mean time the media has the opportunity to speculate on this crime before they get back to making us afraid of attack from North Korea. It seems that someone wants us to be continually afraid of something and the media is following that lead.

The only way you win is to turn off your "weapons of mass communication" and look around. 

As you were,

Jay