Boston, 2013

You know what? I don’t care who set off the bombs in Copley Plaza at the end of the Boston Marathon. Whoever committed this deed is Evil. And I don’t care what the cause was of those who set off the bombs in Copley Plaza. If a cause could lead to such violence then the cause is Evil and I reject it with all the vehemence of my mind.

Earlier today one of my children spoke of wanting to run next year in the Boston Marathon. Right now she is up to  . . . well, I don’t know how many yards per day she runs, and I suggested to her that the Boston Marathon requires a qualifying time in a marathon race earlier in the year. “Oh well,” she said, “I’ll run a different marathon.” And then several hours later some despicable human beings planted bombs at the finish, at least, and killed and injured runners who had trained very hard for a long time to qualify for this race. For some of those runners entry in the Boston Marathon was the fulfillment of a dream. And some despicable people planted bombs at the finish and destroyed the well-earned triumphs of very normal people who had worked very hard to achieve the finish line at the Boston Marathon.

And then those despicable people hid their faces.

And now my child fears planes and trains and automobiles. And road-running races!

I am reminded of the change in the last line in Dylan’s “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll: “Bury the rag deep in your face, Now is the time for your tears.” I am ashamed for the perpetrators of this most heinous act. And then I am reminded of Hamlet’s description of Claudius: “Bloody, bawdy, villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!” If their cause had validity before this act, then in the bombing today that cause has lost that validity.

The Boston Marathon celebrates Patriot’s Day; the day celebrates the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. There at Concord Bridge was fired the shot heard ‘round the world. It was the semi-official beginning of the American Revolution. Today, another shot was fired and it shamed the day.  The United States has much good to say of it; it has much bad to speak of as well. Some would say that the bombings in Copley Plaza are the acts of another revolution in progress, but I reject that ascription. What I know about the Revolution is that the rebels targeted not the innocent but the traitorous collaborationist. Benjamin Franklin disown ed his son who sided with the British, but he did not blow up his house and children.

The act is unspeakable, and I cannot speak more about it. And having crossed the finish line at several marathons, I am distraught at the horror of this act, and I am crushed by sadness for those who finished the race in the wrong time.