Why? You appear to have internet access?? Are you an FBI agent who will be tied up in an investigation?

I am in Boston also and I'm not trying to sound insensitive, but businesses are open, schools are open, we have internet access, and aside from Boylston Street being closed and peoples' individual grief, things are operating somewhat normally. What would cause you to miss moves? And I am sorry for posting this if you were injured or are caring for someone who was injured.

Haha -- I cross-posted with krellin in a less caustic manner.

I'm not caustic...I'm sarcastic.

Maybe snide and insensitive...

...but not "caustic"...

Caustic: 2. : marked by incisive sarcasm.

Actually, that was pretty tame for krellin.

Judging from my own (surprising) reaction, I think it would be a good idea, a wise one, to refrain from judging people on how they're dealing with this. I had never thought I would feel it the way I do today... Never. And I probably would not have had much understanding for people feeling that way had I not myself been through it.

Not to say you guys can't question him on his desire to pause the game. But maybe tread lightly?

Nothing about your reaction is surprising, Cach. You and your wife were mere minutes from being.part of this tragic assault and she even closer hanging.out near where the unexploded bomb was located at the time of the attack.

I'll watch your games, none of them are in nmr risk now so I'll let them go and check them tomorrow.

People could request a pause for any reason, to poke fun at or mock somebody because they were near a terrorist atrocity and avoided death or serious injury ....
do you not feel any compassion when innocent people are targeted in this manner.
You go into a war zone and you can expect/manage the fear/danger/terror to a certain extent.
When you're out with your family and friends cheering on civilian heroes raising money for charities and good causes, nobody is prepared for what happened yesterday.
It's sickening for innocent people to be targeted in this way. At least with the IRA most of the time they sent a warning, this is just mindless slaughter ......

I'm surprised of my emotional reaction because we got out unscathed and we were a block and a half away from the site when it went off. I also know myself and I know I would have thoughtlessly went to help people had I been there and uninjured. That is, I know myself to be fairly cool in crazy situations. So I'm surprised that I spent today with my eyes tearing up every time I had to talk about the events and my memories of it. I'm surprised it's getting at me so much.

You had a loved one at ground zero of bomb three when one and two went off. I would be surprised if you weren't getting emotional.

Trauma has a funny way of acting like that.

I actually support cachimbo's reaction, having actually been "involved" in the event in a manner in which he could imagine, "If I had only...<x>...I could have been in the blast zone..." and having this give him pause and reflection on his life.

What I do not understand is everyone else with their overt emotional reactions who had nothing to do with it and where nowhere near it and who's only connection is media events.

A lot of these are the same people who would tell someone to get over it when they call for a strong military because they have a vivid recollection of 9/11.

These are the same people who will tell me to get over it when I mention the wholesale slaughter that is taking place *daily* in our American cities, like Detroit and Chicago, and won't feel emotion for that because...well...i don't know why they won't feel anything for those people? Perhaps it's their social status, or some other factor that makes them so disconnected from emotional response...

So that's what I don't get. Cach has a reason to feel emotion....the vast majority here don't...or if they do because they have "empathy", why is their "empathy" so limited and constrained to select **media** events?

My only emotions regarding this event are empathy for Cach because he is our friend, thankfulness my niece was at my other niece's bridal shower instead of running this year (same bridal shower I took my wife and mother in law to) and a strange perturbance and anger at the camera people who didn't kust record it but kept recording instead of.jumping in and helping.

And krellin, what slaughter is this of which you speak?

I asked you a question, krellin.

Draug - sorry, didn't see your question. Yes, I agree, I have sympathy for Cach because of his proximity to the disaster.

The slaughter I refer to is the murder rate in Detroit and Chicago, to name two of our nations large cities. Yes, the murder is spread out over the course of the year, but the total dead by random violence in the cities make this bombing in Boston laughable in terms of damage to life and families...and yet most people hear these numbers and say, "Yeah...whatever..." and it doesn't bother them for whatever reason. But, if I suggest to them that I'm not emotionally impacted by the events in Boston, I'm made out to be some sort of monster.

My point is - if you are going to be disturbed by murder and death, why are people only emotionally traumitized by the "big"ones, the "media event" murder like this, as opposed to be forlorn about the (I'll say it again...) the wholesale slaughter of people (primarily young black males) in the inner cities of our major cities?

My answer: Because they are not instructed to feel bad about thee events by the media, and thus the sheeple don't care. If NBC decided to do a news special, full of emotional music and video of grieving mothers, people would probably suddenly care (for a day or two...)

It's kind of repulsive.

@Krellin - you are probably right, but I think part of the reason is that people like to share things; grief and happiness. When say, Lady Diana died, people where consumed by they grief as if they had lost a mother or father, sister or brother. I think it was because they could share the grief with others, everyone knew of the story, family and circumstances. The fact is several people we never knew die as a result of drunken drivers each year and we feel nothing.

I don't think people are monster for feeling nothing or wallow in grief when strangers die in a newsworthy way. I just feel people have emotions that are genuine at the time.

I kind of thought that was where you were going. I am going to make two points here. Please read through them fully. I am not trying to be callous but to repond to your perceived reason with two much more valid reasons.

1. The incident in Boston is a single incident. No single incident in Detroit or Chicago (or any other major city) of a typical murder scenario impacts as many lives. IF you really want to compare apples and oranges, look to the number of people killed every day int he US in car accideents versus the number of murders.

2011: 32,367 vehicular deaths (more than 10,000 from drunk drivers alone)
2011: 311,591,917 population and 4.7 murders per 100,000 populace = 3116*4.7 = 14,645 murders in 2011. Less than half the vehicular deaths and this is total murders, not just inner city ones.

2. Look too the perpetrators of these murders of the inner city youth. Who are they? Who are the victims? Be honest. The perps are typically young black males. The victims (as you point out) are typically young black males. Why the fuck should I care if animals kill each other? Honestly, I have a hard time caring when inner city youth kill themselves off. I care on individual cases when it is a baby or innocent victim in a drive by, but the majority of the murders are youth killing youth over drug deals gone south or gang bangers killing other gang bangers and I say "let them kille ach other off and decrease the surplus population".

In hsort, live by the sword and die by the sword.

@Draug The only problem with that idea is that the majority of the people killed in Chicago aren't necessarily gangbangers or whatever you want to all them. A lot are high school aged and younger and others are innocent bystanders stuck between the rival gangs. It's a serious problem.

@Krellin What makes you assumes that people don't feel empathy in the cases fo Chicago and Detroit? I know I feel tons of empathy for the situations, but there's no good answer to the situations there either.

As I said, on a case by case basis I do feel empathy for innocent victims. But CF, can you provide clear evidence that even a simple majority of inner city murders are innocents and not gandbanger/drug lord on GB/DL?

Since I don't have the exact percents in front of me no I can't, but I do know there are weekly reports of kids being shot and of bystanders being killed.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/18882777-452/mitchell-people-should-get-angry-over-gangs-killing-innocent-people.html

And you wonder why I and others have a hard time feeling sorry for the people who live in these neighborhoods?

A life is a life and still not everyone has some connections. That's also why I said there's no good answer on how to fix the problems. The community is going to have to work for it as well.

Oh and Mary Mitchell is really high biased in her opinions and may not be the best article to show.

I couldn't care less about her opinion or her assertions of what would happen if it were a cop (they are moot points in my argument). I was only dealing with the facts in the article. Fact: No one has come forward. Someone knows who did it. Probably *many* someones. No one has come forward. When the people decide to take back their neighborhood and work with the police, even anonymously (and there are anonymous tip lines), *then* I will have more compassion for the neighborhood. Until then, I reserve my empathy only for the baby, not the baby's gangbanger father and not the community at large who does *nothing* to stop it.

I took your statement to be that you'd have no sympathy for those victims at all. Regardless if they were in gangs or not.

No, I said several times I have sympathy and empathy for the innocent victims. I lack sympathy for the ones who truly put themselves in those situations (the drug dealers, users, and gangbangers) and I alck sympathy for a community at large who won't even work anonymopusly with the police to bring the killers to justice, but I have complete sympathy and empathy for the innocent victims (and their families if they to were innocent, not like this baby's dad who put his kid in harms way by being a gangbanger).

Draug - while in the past I would wholeheartedly agree with your opinion and even now I half-agree, you have to realize that most of these people don't choose the lives they live. They are victims of lack of opportunity, poor education, and bad parenting.

I again point to the fact that the ones I lack compassion for are the bangers themselves and the ones who do nothing to even anonymously tip the police off when they know who comitted a crime. That has nothing to do with lack of opportunity or poor education or bad parenting (well maybe the latter, but the sins of the father do not weigh on the son and the sins of the son are likewise his own).