Still not "terrorized" by the Boston Marathon bombings (and stuff afterwards).

[IdaBriggs]

How?

a) Wasn't there; we live in Michigan.

b) Did not watch television news coverage about it; we use DVR to tape shows, and those that were "interrupted" weren't watched (sometimes days later) - we just deleted them.

c) Stayed informed via the Internet. Main sources of information (including "latest breaking&quot were DU, facebook and the Yahoo main page. Was shockingly up-to-the-minute informed despite only paying attention a few times a day.

All in all I am completely impressed by how everyone EXCEPT THE NEWS MEDIA handled these events.

Still no burning desire to run out and buy weapons of mass destruction, or curtail civil liberties. Didn't even discuss it with the kids. To be fair, we were watching "Buffy" most of the weekend, as the whole family has been recovering from mild spring misery, so we did offer parental wisdom: "If you see a monster chasing you, RUN!"



Hey, did anyone notice that "no regulation" at a fertilizer plant is a bad thing?

[SheilaT]

1. Yeah. I complained about the lack of coverage

of the Texas explosion and was dumped on here at DU. Apparently I didn't get how much worse it was to kill three people and injure a hundred and fifty or so, compared to killing dozens and injuring several hundred, along with completely destroying an elementary school and a few other buildings.

Clearly, I'm not condoning the Boston bombing, but notice that the kid was finally caught when the lifted the lockdown, shelter in place order. Gosh. What a weird coincidence.

[marions ghost]

3. They can't really be compared

by numbers of deaths. That cheapens the life of those killed or maimed, reducing them to head counts.

One was an accident (negligence). The other was a premeditated mass murder. The first we can understand & hold the owner (& poor regulation) accountable. The second eats into our imagination as an act of subhuman violence and we need to know some of the answers why, in order to rationalize it and go on. In the Boston bombing, it was not known for a couple of days who the perps might be, and both sides of our political divide had their theories. We always look for who to blame in the case of incomprehensible murder.
The wait in the case of Boston increased the suspense about which fundamentalist religiosity was at work--Xtian or Islamic. And in the end, is the greater problem sociopathic kids who fall into violent ideologies? These Boston Bombers remind me most of the Norway guy.

I think they did the best they possibly could in Boston in dealing with this chaotic situation. With the world watching, not easy.

You can't compare the Texas event and Boston. There is no undue "preference" for one over the other. The horror of a mass murder has more shock value and more need for psychological integration of some kind especially given the woeful mainstream media coverage, MSNBC excepted which at least showed some restraint.

We are neither safe from corporate negligence nor from extremists and sick kids with weapons.

[sabrina 1]

4. Do you know how many people were killed by the blast in Texas? It's very hard to get any

information on those victims. I agree head counts are irrelevant, every single unnecessary death is a tragedy. But for some reason our media doesn't seem interested in the victims of that terrifying explosion. We should at least know how many actually died, were injured and/are now homeless.

[marions ghost]

5. I doubt the media is not interested in getting those facts

--ie. how many died & were injured and more on how and why it happened. I am sure they are working on getting the details. And I'm sure that we at DU are interested in the follow-up on that.

DUers HAVE pointed out the hypocrisy-- in Sen. Cruz voting against the Sandy relief bill --but now calling for such help for Texas.

-----------------

http://www.politicususa.com/flashback-ted-cruz-lecture-sandy-victims-texas-begs-handouts-feds.html

Excerpt:

"No Republican ever manages to tell us where that money is supposed to come from if we don’t collect revenue, instead they claim offsets should be found before the relief is doled out — unless, of course, it’s their state under seige.

Cut to April of 2013. Texas needs federal aid because they don’t do such a great job of regulating and overseeing businesses or zoning, apparently. So when a fertilizer plant that had once been allowed to operat without a pollution permit for several years blew up and impacted a nearby school and nursing home, the devastating damage was more than Texas could cope with alone.

Sen. Cruz will visit West on Friday. He finally issued a statement from the Capitol, “We are in very close touch with officials on the ground and we’re monitoring the tragic accident closely. It’s truly horrific and we are working to ensure that all available resources are marshaled to deal with the horrific loss of life and suffering that we’ve seen.”

[SheilaT]

13. A lot more than three, that's for sure.

And one of the reasons we know so little about it is that the news channels are doing wall-to-wall coverage in Boston, but the Texas thing is, Oh, yeah, that's right, something happened but what was it again?

Each and every person in Texas died every bit as unnecessarily as those in Boston. But what are the chances of the owners of that facility ever facing charges, let alone jail time?

Corporate murder is simply business as usual, apparently.

[pipi_k]

6. What disturbed me about

the media (over) coverage of the Boston bombing and the subsequent manhunt was that most of the news "coverage" was a lot of nothing.

Just talking heads standing around spreading breathless, hyperbolic misinformation, waiting for something to happen. They couldn't multitask?

Report on both stories by turn?

[IdaBriggs]

10. I don't mind "news" - I definitely thought the regular reports of

"something is happening - we don't know anything!" were ridiculous.

It was embarrassing; but logically, it is what happens when "infotainment" takes over "real news" 24/7.

[IdaBriggs]

9. I get that "intent" with terrorists is a major issue, but

Greed = Super Bad because NOBODY had to die at the fertilizer plant.

Hopefully the plant owner will end up doing some jail time for manslaughter at the very least.

[Arctic Dave]

2. Yep. I was remodeling the bathroom for most of the dust up.

Did what happened suck? Yes, but the level of throw out the constitution crowd was something to behold.

I see now why W was able to lead the country by the nose and do whatever he pleased.

The level of cowardly submission was appalling.

[IdaBriggs]

11. Agreed that what happened s*ck*d.

The folks in Boston seemed to be handling it pretty calmly.

I think the "leadership" (Republicans looking to use it as an excuse to make money by starting wars vs Democrats taking care of the country) has a lot to do with the fact I don't see us going to war with Russia anytime soon (thank heavens!) over it.

(Which might have happened under the last administration! )

[bettyellen]

7. God! I hate hearing all that "we are all Boston today" bullshit. It wasn't true of NYC after 9/11..

if it were, the country wouldn't have went to war over it. We'd be a kinder, more liberal nation.
Thanks for not being an armchair quarterback. No use pretending you have an idea what it was like.

[uppityperson]

8. k&r, thank you. The breathless continual media coverage was OBNOXIOUS and contributed a lot

to upping the tension everywhere.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. You know funny thing

Due to work I had to follow this closely, incluiding plenty of TV. Perhaps it's because I understand how that's sausage is made, but I was never terrorized either.

In fact, I was in awe at Pete Williams and his careful reporting. CNN, not so much.

[smirkymonkey]

14. I suppose I wasn't that terrified because I was in NYC during 9/11.

I was quite freaked out after that, but if you don't learn to adjust to it, you go crazy. So you learn to adjust. I think that it somehow desensitizes you in a way. Not that you aren't afraid and that you don't care. You just learn how to steel yourself against it in a way. You have to. Otherwise, you would lose your mind.