0 What We're Reading Today (4-16-13): Boston Marathon (UPDATED)

I have the early shift at work this morning and normally I try to toss together a "What We're Reading Today" for everyone when they wake up.  Today it's heavy on the information relating to the Boston Marathon.  Looking at my tabs now, I think everything except for one Russia Today update regarding a 7.8 earthquake in Iran is about the Marathon, different people who were there, heroes, photographs, and personal stories of people squaring themselves with a rupture in narrative.

(Getty)

Two if by Sorrow: Boston and its Losses - The New Yorker
Jill Lepore

'Please don't be a Muslim': Boston marathon blasts draw condemnation and dread in Muslim world - Washington Post
Max Fisher

The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry On - The Atlantic
Bruce Schneier

Photos of the Boston Marathon Bombing - The Atlantic

War Zone at Mile 26: 'So Many People Without Legs' - New York Times
Tim Rohan

The Boston Marathon: All My Tears, All My Love - The Nation
Dave Zirin

The Man in the Cowboy Hat: Meet Carlos Arrededondo, a Hero of the Boston Bombings - Mother Jones
Tasneem Raja

Boylston, and Cataloguing Bedtime - Who-Witz
Seth Hurwitz

When You Attack a Crowd of People, You Get a Crowd of Witnesses - The Atlantic Cities
Emily Badger

Patton Oswalt Pens Inspirational Missive on Humanity's Inherent Goodness in Wake of Boston Marathon Bombing - Gawker
Neetzan Zimmerman

Boston Marathon Explosions: The Heroes who Responded to the Blasts - The Daily Beast
Nina Strochlic

Boston Marathon Bombing Called 'a Madrid-Style Event' - The Daily Beast
Lloyd Grove

On Marathon Monday, Three Dead, Over One-Hundred Injured in Explosions - Tufts Daily
James Pouliot

Mainers describe 'war scene' and 'chaos' - Portland Press Herald
David Hench and Glenn Jordan

Boston Marathon: The Last 5 - Facebook
In light of today's tragedy, let's remember, honor, and stand up for all those affected by the incident that occurred at the 117th Boston Marathon. We invite everyone to join us on Friday, April 19 at 4:30pm to walk from BC to Boston to stand united. For anyone who did not get to finish, For anyone who was injured, and For anyone who lost their life...we will walk. We will walk to show that we decide when our marathon ends.

7.8 Earthquake hits Iran, felt in New Delhi, Gulf States - Russia Today

UPDATE: 8:27 AM EASTERN TIME

London Marathon will go ahead as planned, sports minister says - Guardian
Owen Gibson, Peter Walker, Vikram Dodd

The Enemy-Industrial Complex - The Nation
Tom Engelhardt

Person of Interest's Apartment Searched - Politico
Kevin Cirilli

Politicians, pundits, debate the 'terror' label - Politico

A perfect Marathon day, then the unimaginable - Boston Globe
Kevin Cullen

Documenting Tragedy: Vine and the Boston Marathon - Society Pages
Whitney Erin Boesel

UPDATE: 4:08 PM EASTERN TIME

The Boston bombing produces familiar and revealing reactions - Guardian
Glenn Greenwald

The Many Amazing Ways Boston's College Community has Responded to Monday's Tragedy - BostInno
Lauren Landry

Boston Marathon bombings: Devices with pressure cookers, experts say - Chicago Tribune
Tribune Wire

Computer glitch: AA grounds all flights through 5 p.m. ET - USA Today
Ben Mutzabaugh

Security Is a Challenge for Sprawling Marathons - New York Times
Ken Belson

Boston the day after: More security; second victim named - USA Today
Melanie Eversley and John Bacon

Day after blasts, Back Bay 'looks like Armageddon' - Boston Globe
Casey Ross, Beth Healy, Jenn Abelson, Erin Ailworth

Investigation of Boston Marathon bombings continues - Boston Globe
Shelley Murphy, Chelsea Conaboy, Martin Finucane

You May Leave Boston, but Boston Never Leaves - The Atlantic
Andrew Cohen

The Promise of the Boston Marathon - The Atlantic
Colin Daileda

6 False Thing You Heard About the Boston Marathon - Mother Jones
Dana Liebelson and Tim Murphy

The Unfinished Race - New York Review of Books
Hugh Eakin

How the Boston Marathon helped the fight for equal rights - The New Republic
Nora Caplan-Bricker

UPDATE: 9:01 PM EASTERN TIME

Your Stories: Were You in Boston on Marathon Day? - WBUR

Boston Bomb Clues Surface - Wall Street Journal
Evan Perez, Devlin Barrett, and Andrew Grossman

FBI examines shrapnel from Boston bombs as nation mourns - LA Times
Richard A. Serrano, Shashank Bengali, and Michael Muskal

McManus: We're Safer than We Think - LA Times
Doyle McManus

Boston bombing 'used pressure cooker packed with metal' - Guardian
Ed Pilkington, Adam Gabbatt, Dan Roberts, Matt Williams

From Sandy Hook to the Streets of Boston, Terror Anew - New York Times
Peter Applebome

BU grad student was killed in Boston Marathon bombings - Boston Globe
Globe staff

Source: Investigators recover circuit board believed used to detonate Boston blasts - Boston.com
Shelley Murphy, Chelsea Conaboy, Milton J. Valencia, Martin Finucane

I watched the Boston Marathon from above. These are my photos. - Deadspin
Ben Levine

UPDATE: 12:30 AM (4/17/13)

The Saudi Marathon Man - The New Yorker
Amy Davidson

Share Your Story - Boston Globe
You

(Reuters)

0 42.195 km with Keith Haring on Boylston Street

I figured that I might as well put words to the page if I'm going to just sit around looking at Twitter and not doing my work -- at the very least this is artistic, to some extent.  This might not be the most constructive thing or reach any real "point" but it is more writing than I have done today -- 140-characters-at-a-time notwithstanding.

One of my favorite features of the Boston Marathon is the ability to track the runners.  This meant that for me -- and a bunch of my peers who were cooped-up reading the writing of crusty old guys instead of out getting drunk at BC, BU, or Northeastern -- we were able to feel some level of excitement for our friends who were running the marathon this year; even if only through a Google Maps portal, we could marvel at their accomplishments as they went hour after hour through Framingham, Wellesley, Newton, and right into Boston.

I was sitting in the Senate office with Andrew pretending to do work. In reality though I wasn't reading the aforementioned crusty old guys; I was watching the little Keith Haring-style icons pump their arms and legs across eastern Massachusetts, over the hills, along the Charles, past crowds of their friends and family.

I switched the to the live feed of the finish line when I saw that Jessie was nearing Copley Square with Riley keeping pace behind her.  At best, I figured, I could get a screenshot of her crossing the finish line since I had decided at the last minute not to go -- which sucks because there is no sweeter image in your head running down the last 1/2 mile with Cee-Cee, with Jen, with Jessie, with Alden, with whoever.  Well, I guess one sweeter image would be turning that last corner and seeing the finish line -- but still.  The point is that they do 26 miles on their own -- the least we could do is offer them our spirit for the last half-mile.

Disbelief replaced relief, though.  Disbelief that the Twitter feed on the side of the page had changed so quickly from people praising their friends' efforts, sharing InstaGram photos, and posting times. 

3:36:14

3:41:49

3:45:02

#BostonMarathon explosion heard near finish line

3:53:32

Explosions heard at finish line of #BostonMarathon

3:54:11

Grossly unsettling.  Internally disturbing.  Defying all sense of how and who and what should happen next, a complete rupture to the narrative.  There wasn't a jubilant scene but instead havoc and panic, police cars parking on the finish line and spectators darting away from the site of the explosion.  Runners streaming in confused, exhausted, and deprived of the jubilation that everyone is entitled to after 26.2 miles of feet-on-pavement ceaseless motion.  Everything pixelated and distorted.

Already late for work, I scurried down Professor's Row and into the gymnasium to sit behind a security desk and do work -- again, lies.  I sat down, plugged in my Macbook, opened Google Chrome, opened Facebook, the Associated Press, and two Twitter tabs and began retweeting.  How quickly this had all changed from waiting for the perfect instant to command-shift-4 the moment of triumph to going between police and EMT scanners, Reuters, Anonymous, and Boston Globe updates.  Thankfully, my friend, Alvaro, started a hashtag for all the Tufts students to coordinate the locations of their friends who were volunteers, runners, etc.: #TuftsRunners.  It was remarkable, absolutely, the speed with which Tufts students were together and tweeting back and forth the names and locations of missing-then-found loved ones, fact-checking and cross-referencing reports, and keeping everyone calm.

But even three hours later it's still all so unresolved -- and I don't mean the why and the who.  I can imagine those things, to be honest.  A right-wing terrorist, someone whose country has been defiled by US (cultural) imperialism, or any of the "usual suspects" (whatever that might mean when we look at the data and don't just stoke Islamophobia; I'm looking at you, New York Post).

The more irksome and pervasively disconcerting component to this is just how deprived and robbed and cheated I feel like so many people were, the runners and the spectators.  What were the statistics on the day?  

Marathon numbers: 23,326 official starters, 17,584 finished the race. 4,496 runners crossed 40K but did not finish.
— SB Nation (@sbnation) April 15, 2013

Jessie was .4 miles from the finish line.  Jen just over a half-mile.  Cee-Cee only a mile away.  Where is their re-run, or do-over, or chance to run those last 2,000 ft with their friends and loved ones cheering them on, elated at the feat of human endurance that was just achieved?  There isn't one. There isn't one and that really hurts.

Or how to square the reality that being one of the pictures in the news or being safely at home watching it all filter through was a stroke of luck -- that the T was delayed, you missed the Joey, or your friend pulled you to Newbury St. instead of Boylston to avoid the crowd.  That street corner is so tangible, touchable, and remembered; it was shopping with your bros; it was exploring Boston as a freshman; it was Winter Bash and where you took your family when they visited.  Any of us could have been on that street corner and so many of us were just feet away, saved by a lucky decision to turn left instead of right.

And I can't help but think about the kids in other parts of the world who deal with this even more routinely than we do here.  The drones that never leave, the explosions that kill 37 and injure 140, or the ever-present reality that each embrace might be the last -- how must it be to live like that.

This is just a reminder, I suppose, that violence, senseless or sensible (if that is a thing), doesn't need to seem rational, coherent, doesn't need to make sense.  It doesn't have to square with our vision of what should or shouldn't happen. It doesn't, in all honesty, need to be anything more than what it is: violence -- violence that injures, violence that hurts, and memories that last.

And meanwhile, the icons that represented where my friends were on the marathon course just keep going -- all nondescript bodies with arms and legs pumping, tirelessly, frozen at 42.195 kilometers but still having never crossed the finish line.

Made this on imgflip.com. Original post here

All of y'all are heroes.

Say when and where and I will toss on my Reebok running shoes and crush that last mile with you, any of you.