What a week...

What. A. Week.

Boston bombing and manhunt. Bombing in Iraq. Texas fertilizer plant explosion. Earthquakes in Iran and China. Of course, deadly things are happening all the time. It's inescapable. But it still feels like a week of especially strange deadliness.

I followed the mayhem in Boston closely. Reddit was always up. The police scanners were always running. I know a couple folks in the area. And my dad ran the marathon just a few years ago with the local running club, so I know what kind of effort and special planning is required to take part. There were 14 locals there this year. A handful of them had just finished or were a few minutes from finishing at the time of the explosions. Eerie.

Reddit really was quite incredible. A blog post was just put up, which summarizes what happened there. I didn't really participate, but it was fascinating to watch it unfold in real-time. I was grateful to the site as the traditional TV news media is increasingly abysmal at reporting during such incidents.

Many Youtubers weighed in on Boston, but I liked mickeleh's video the most.


Now that days have passed, I'm noticing more how unsettled I am about Boston and the suspects. I know I'm not alone in this. Many are vengeful in their reaction. Execute him, skin him alive, make him suffer for the rest of his days. But many feel like I do.

I can't go there. I simply can't. This 19 year old kid (as far as can be assumed with what we know) was responsible for at least some of the carnage. The bombing victims, the murdered officer, the firefights, and the potential will to cause more harm with stored up explosives. Yes. All of that. He's the scum of the universe for his part, whatever it was. But I desperately crave the 'why'. This kid's Twitter feed could easily be one of my own friends. The bits of his life recorded to the net over the years build an image that is the polar opposite of what he did in Boston. For this... I want to know. I want to understand. I can accept that he might be a sociopath. His persona carefully orchestrated. Sure. But this feels too easy. Too simple. There is more story here. The brother. The broken family. The isolation.

If not the sociopath, then what? What pressure? What threat? What desperation or fear drove him to do this? I'm eerily reminded of an episode of LOST. Sayid's backstory in season one. Weird.

I wonder if he'll provide answers... silently if his voice never returns. Maybe he will answer. Maybe it will be all lies. But I want it. I want to know what justification, what reason, was in his head. Whatever it was, it will be wrong. But I want to know it. The craving for it lingers with me. Enough so that if the answer never comes it will bother me for a long time.
It shouldn't. But I can feel that it will.