The view from Pavement Coffeehouse on Gainsborough Street in Boston a little over an hour ago.
Hail hits Hub
Category: News
Some reflections on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s apology
It’s impossible to live in the Boston area and not have an opinion about Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s apology, which he delivered in federal court Wednesday as he was formally sentenced to death. For what it’s worth, here’s mine.
I think he was sincere — up to a point. I’m sure he sincerely wishes he didn’t find himself in this predicament, and he would have to be inhuman not to be affected by the victims’ stories that he heard during his trial. He is not inhuman, though he committed inhuman acts.
More than anything, though, I was struck by his aggrandizement and narcissism. He very much wants to impress us with his religious piety. Genuine humility and remorse? Not at the top of his agenda. I’ve heard a number of people say he apologized only because his lawyers pushed him into it. That may be true, but they couldn’t have been very happy with his smug self-regard — or with his thanks to them and others for making his life behind bars so “very easy.”
I was also struck by Kevin Cullen’s observation in The Boston Globe that Tsarnaev spoke with “an affected accent,” which suggests that he remains deeply under the influence of the jihadist propaganda on which he and his brother, Tamerlan, gorged themselves before carrying out their unspeakably evil mission. (And for the umpteenth time: Why couldn’t we see and hear Tsarnaev for ourselves?)
In the years to come, I hope Tsarnaev comes to a more genuine sense of repentance. And though it’s only natural that we focus on what motivated Tsarnaev to act as he did, we should never forget that the people who truly matter are Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell, Lingzi Lu and Sean Collier, as well as their friends, families and those who were injured.
Remembering the nine victims of the Charleston shootings
Look at this image of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church‘s home page. Nothing has changed since the horrifying murders of nine people Wednesday evening. The site also includes this quote from Sister Jean German Ortiz, who, I assume, is or was a member of the church: “Jesus died a passionate death for us, so our love for Him should be as passionate.”
They died passionately for our sins — we, the inheritors and conservators of a Confederate-flag-waving, gun-drenched culture that has only partly come to terms with our legacy of slavery and racism. The Washington Post has sketches of each of the nine: Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, DePayne Middleton Doctor, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, Clementa C. Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons and Myra Thompson. Sadly, with the possible exception of Rev. Pinckney, we’ll have an easier time remembering the name of the shooter, Dylann Storm Roof. There’s only one of him, and in any case evil holds our attention more easily than good.
I’m not sure why this terrible crime would spark any disagreements other than the inevitable disagreement over guns. But for some reason people are debating whether this is a “hate crime” or an act of “terrorism.” It strikes me that it’s obviously both — a home-grown act of terror committed by someone filled with hate.
But enough bloviating. Here is a short list of articles I’ve read that I hope will broaden our understanding.
I begin with our finest essayist, Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic, who has written an eloquent demand that South Carolina remove the Confederate flag immediately. He writes:
This moral truth [a reference to a speech by a Confederate politician] — “that the negro is not equal to the white man” — is exactly what animated Dylann Roof. More than any individual actor, in recent history, Roof honored his flag in exactly the manner it always demanded — with human sacrifice.
Too bad Gov. Charlie Baker’s initial reaction to a question about the Stars and Bars was so clueless. Dan Wasserman of The Boston Globe does a whole lot better.
The New York Times publishes a piece by Douglas R. Egerton, the biographer of Emanuel AME founder Denmark Vesey, on the history of the church — a history marred by numerous racist attacks, the most recent coming in 1963. Here’s Egerton:
For 198 years, angry whites have attacked Emanuel A.M.E. and its congregation, and when its leaders have fused faith with political activism, white vigilantes have used terror to silence its ministers and mute its message of progress and hope.
Egerton also links to a 2014 Times article on the unveiling of a statue of Vesey, who, along with 34 others, was executed following a failed slave rebellion. Incredibly, there were those who opposed the statue on the grounds that Vesey was a “terrorist.” Think about that if you hear anyone deny that Roof carried out an act of terrorism.
I’ll close with my friend Charlie Pierce, who posted a commentary at Esquire on Thursday that demonstrated tough, clear-eyed thinking at a moment when the rest of us were still trying to figure out what had just happened. Pierce writes:
What happened in a Charleston church on Wednesday night is a lot of things, but one thing it’s not is “unspeakable.” We should speak of it often. We should speak of it loudly. We should speak of it as terrorism, which is what it was. We should speak of it as racial violence, which is what it was.
Please keep the nine victims and their families in your thoughts today.
Best wishes to Joe Biden and his family
I can’t imagine surviving the losses that Joe Biden has suffered. Our thoughts are with him and his family tonight. This speech is from 2012.
Survivor couple joins Richards in opposing death penalty
Boston Marathon bombing survivors Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes have joined Bill and Denise Richard in calling on the Justice Department to drop its quest for the death penalty. Kensky and Downes were newlyweds who each lost their left legs in the attack; Kensky later lost her right leg as well. They write:
In our darkest moments and deepest sadness, we think of inflicting the same types of harm on him. We wish that he could feel the searing pain and terror that four beautiful souls felt before their death, as well as the harsh reality of discovering mutilated or missing legs. If there is anyone who deserves the ultimate punishment, it is the defendant. However, we must overcome the impulse for vengeance.
In January, the couple was the subject of an in-depth story by The Boston Globe’s Eric Moskowitz on Kensky’s decision to have her badly damaged right leg amputated. I find it meaningful that neither the Richards nor Kensky and Downes indulge in any dubious reasoning that life in prison would somehow be “worse” for the bomber. They just want it over. Who is anyone else to judge?
A magnificent gesture by a family that has lost much
In case you haven’t seen it yet, Bill and Denise Richard have written a magnificent essay for The Boston Globe asking that the government drop its quest to execute the Boston Marathon bomber. (In deference to the Richards’ decision not to name the bomber, I won’t either.)
“For us,” they write, “the story of Marathon Monday 2013 should not be defined by the actions or beliefs of the defendant, but by the resiliency of the human spirit and the rallying cries of this great city.”
This is #bostonstrong.
In West Medford, #MBTApocalypse hits a new low
One of the most frustrating aspects of #MBTApocalypse is that is that we mere mortals who rely on the commuter rail have no idea whether to blame Keolis, the T or some combination thereof.
For me, though, the entire experience hit rock bottom this morning in what I think was an unusually shameful (or maybe I should say shameless) episode. I walked to the West Medford train station to catch the 8:58 to North Station. There were a couple of dozen people waiting. The electronic sign that normally provides updates was out. And there was No Train.
The T app said it had broken down and was stuck in Wilmington. But there were no further updates. We had no way of knowing whether a train would be showing up any moment or if, instead, all trains were backed up behind it. I asked the flagman; despite being equipped with a walkie-talkie, he didn’t know. A half-hour later I walked back home and drove in to work. I still don’t know when or if the 8:58 ever arrived.
It’s been two weeks since the last major snowstorm, and Keolis and/or the T still can’t stick to the reduced schedule that will be in effect for another month. Meanwhile, the economy suffers and the roads are choked with drivers who’d rather be taking public transportation. There’s no longer any excuse that I want to listen to. Just fix it.
Media Nation’s 2014 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 260,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 11 days for that many people to see it.
The fatal decision was made before the chokehold
It seems to me that we’re looking at the wrong thing in thinking about the death of Eric Garner. It wasn’t the chokehold — it was the police officers’ decision to use overwhelming force to enforce a ridiculous law that no one cares about. Once that decision was made, there was no predicting what the outcome would be.
I’m sure Officer Daniel Pantaleo didn’t mean to kill Eric Garner. But he and his fellow officers certainly meant to take him down. And for what?
And yes, it is inconceivable that Pantaleo and perhaps other officers weren’t charged with something by the grand jury for their horrendous judgment. Criminal negligence perhaps?
Market Basket’s customers deserve credit, too
Also published at WGBHNews.org.
One quick observation about the resolution of the Market Basket standoff: This was a very rare case of a consumer boycott actually working. The reason it worked was because people truly love Market Basket and wanted to support the employees.
The workers deserve a huge amount of credit for standing up and risking their livelihoods. But if this had been just another supermarket, management would have fired them all and the public wouldn’t have cared — at least not enough to force action. In the case of Market Basket, management didn’t dare fire the workers because the customers wouldn’t have stood for it.
Congratulations to the employees — and, yes, to Arthur T. Demoulas — for a remarkable victory. Market Basket has become a symbol of how people working in the service economy can make a decent living while still offering a better product than the competition.