Too Much Boston Marathon

From the Heartland, Margot McMillen writes: This is the first Sunday morning in a decade when I haven’t watched Meet the Press on TV. I just can’t stand to see those images again—the explosions at the Boston Marathon, people screaming, running TO the emergency rather than FROM the emergency as every TV commentator, preacher and fireman has told us. And then the “manhunt” as the headlines say. We’ve been given a lot of language, haven’t we? I’m sad that it happened, sad for the Bostonians, sad for the Chechnyans and Muslims that will be painted with the same broad brush. I’m proud of the first responders, the people who ran TO the emergency, big shout out to all of ya’all. But I don’t want to re-live it, over and over, giving it the stature that we give news events when they are relentlessly exploited. I don’t want to see it raised to the level of, as they say, “iconic.” I don’t want to see other kids take revenge, and then other kids take revenge against the other kids. You know what I mean—we’ve seen it a million times. The only winners are the media and the advertisers. Better for society to say: this was a bad thing. People were killed unexpectedly, this happens every day in other places but not here. At the bottom of it all was a fearful fellow that listened to the wrong voices. How can we prevent it from happening again? Bottom line: we can’t. Especially if we succumb to the fear that’s driving all this hype. Let it go.