Another Boom

The odd coincidence was that Slave was emailing with our competition over at All Mine when news broke about the Marathon bombing in Suzanne's neck of the woods.

One minute we were comparing theories on the potential compatibility of Shane, "The Witchita Lineman", and Mistress.

The next minute she was assuring me that both Tammy and Jay were well and accounted for. Thankfully.

But that wasn't true for her historic City and the victims of yet another senseless act of violence.

Of course, if you've been around as long as me, you know where things are headed when news like this breaks. The media rounds up the usual "experts" to toss out their speculations about what happened and why, the networks' glamor boys and girls hop on the private jets and line the sidewalks at the scene of the tragedy for their stand-up shots, preening in their "crime scene casual" wear, angling for ratings advantage. The pundits begin an endless round of speculation about who's to blame and the political calculus. Meanwhile the doctors and cops quietly  try to do their jobs under the harsh, prying media microscope.

We've seen it so many times.

The Laguardia bombing in the 1970's, The Atlanta Olympic Bombing, Oklahoma City, the mass shootings at Virginia Tech, Columbine, Connecticut, and of course the mother of all horrors, 9/11/2001.

Our reaction to that unimaginable act of terror led us blundering into Iraq and Afghanistan, and left a death toll that far exceeded the original tragedy. It also left us shoeless at the airport,  droning our adversaries and the innocents around them, and wondering whether the emails we send and phone calls we make are being dumped in some gigantic government data base.

The frenzy, fueled by social media and all those TV news outlets, make us believe we live in a dangerous time and place. They crank up fear, and foster crazy, whether the urge for some act of "eye for an eye" vengeance, or to turn the screws of "security" down another notch, further jeopardizing the freedoms we value.

But when you think about it, we live in relatively safe and stable times, at least those of us who live here in the USA, or in the "developed" world. We don't need to worry about the threats our ancestors faced in a world without today's medical science and technology: deadly influenza epidemics, "consumption", the wars of the 19th and 20th centuries that left millions dead. Even the aircraft crashes that left hundreds dead that were far more typical in the 1970's and 1980's. Mistress and Slave were both at a Who concert years ago where the death toll from a stampede for seats far exceeded yesterday's tragedy.

But these random, unexpected acts of violence like yesterday in Boston, particularly when amplified by the media frenzy, unnerve us all. They make us think twice about whether we can safely walk our streets, or attend the types of events - like the Marathon - that make our communities come together.

Let's hope that the survivors and their families are given the space and care required to recover as best they can.

Let's hope that they quickly find the perpetrators and make sure they can't do this again.

But let's also hope that our collective reaction to this horror does not once again disproportionately ratchet up the fear, the death and the "security" measures that diminish us.