And today there is the all too familiar numbness. Yes, it is that terrible moment we've come to know too well when all the adrenaline has ebbed and the gruesome photos no longer shock, but sink into the core of our being and sit there as a heavy black void.
In Boston there are three confirmed dead, but 17 of the 176 wounded are in critical condition so the toll may rise. The wounded range in age from two years to seventy-one. Two of the casualties are brothers Paul Norden, 31 and J.P. Norden, 33. They each lost a leg in the explosion.
One of the dead is eight year old Martin Richard. He was near the finish line with his mother and sister to cheer on his father who was running in the race. NBC News is reporting that his mother, Denise suffered a brain injury in the blast and his sister lost one of her legs.
A 29 year old woman from Medford, MA named Krystle Campbell has been identified as another fatality. Reports are she was there to root for a friend who was also running in the race.
Authorities are now saying that the bombs were packaged in pressure cookers, loaded with shrapnel such as steel pellets and nails and hidden in back packs. The prevailing opinion at this point is that both devices were detonated by timers. There is no word on suspects, or if police and the FBI have any inkling if this was a domestic or foreign act of terrorism. Apparently instructions on how to construct devices like the ones used yesterday are readily available on the internet to anyone who hears voices in his head, howls at the moon, and can read. All the parts and ingredients needed are reported to be easily bought and perfectly legal.
Meanwhile, in Oklahoma City, reporter Nolan Clay writes in today's The Oklahoman that Sooner Tea Party head Al Gerhart, who is charged with blackmail, turned himself into police on Saturday and now is out on $15,000 bail.
Gerhart, a man who believes brute intimidation and crude threats made against a politician's family and friends equates with political activism, is screeching that he is being politically persecuted. Well of course he is. That is always the last refuge of these right wing meatballs. They morph instantly from a street punk wildly swinging a Louisville Slugger baseball bat into a martyr dangling naked from a cross. Everyone is out to get me only because I was out to get them. I am but an innocent guardian being attacked by a pack of vengeful wolves.
Actually Gerhart is such a well known thug that a judge issued an order prohibiting him from coming within 1000 feet of republican state senator Cliff Branan, or any member of his family. He has still failed to provide any proof of the infidelity he claims Branan committed. Apparently that snide attempt at character assassination turned out to be just a silly mix up, or something he simply pulled out of his ass.
Clay reports that Gerhart didn't surrender himself to police until the weekend because he was out of the country last week. There was no explaination of where or why. Perhaps it was to someplace exotic like the Cayman Islands. After all, one can always use an open bank account in distant locales in case there is a need for speedy immigration at some point in the near future. Indeed, a thinking man needs to be prepared for all contingencies.
It is an uncomfortably cool and gray day here on the southern plains.
Unfortunately it fits the mood perfectly.
sic vita est
4-16-13
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