Post seasonal vacation terror keeps New York true

Summer vacations are best taken after Labor Day, when the summer season is considered over and people are back to the grind. Leaving New York City after Labor Day is a reward for sticking it out in the horrendous heat of this summer.

My family went to Long Beach Island, New Jersey, a tourist mecca that becomes much quieter after Labor Day. The weather was wonderful over the weekend and we enjoyed relaxing on the beach while our toddler girls were mesmerized with experimenting with water and sand. I had no idea such simple ingredients could keep children entertained for hours and have a new appreciation for the beach.

While we were enjoying the ocean air and seafood, we saw the news of the string of bombings that happened in New Jersey and New York City. Long gone are the days when news like that would have sent us running to turn on the TV news. We’ve become much more accustomed to these kinds of events. But before long the damage was assessed with no fatalities, the usual Internet debates sprung up before the dust settled, and within hours of the bombing in Chelsea the authorities had their suspect.

And has been noted before, New York does not scare easily and we overcame fears of bombs years ago. Maybe you can scare a smaller city like Boston or San Francisco with a homemade explosive, but that’s plainly piddling stuff for the Big Apple.

Some of the best comments to win the Internet noted that the bombing brought New Yorkers of all kinds together to acknowledge that 23^rd and 6^th is not Chelsea but the Flatiron neighborhood. No doubt plenty of real estate brokers will consider it Chelsea to jack up the rent, but you have to get to 7^th Avenue to be considered Chelsea. Sorry terrorists.

That the device was planted in what was mistakenly thought to be Chelsea could be a sign that the bomber wanted to target gays, since Chelsea is known as a gay neighborhood. Then again, the suspect in custody put it close to PATH train stations in both Manhattan and Elizabeth, which could mean he was too lazy to walk far in Manhattan. Seeing as he’s spent most of his time in this country working at a fried chicken restaurant in New Jersey, I’m guessing the latter. You don’t have to be hard-working to be a jihadist, just a delusional lunatic.

What warms my heart about the incident the most was not that there were no fatalities or that the suspect was quickly apprehended—and hats off to our first responders for all of that of course. What makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside and have faith that the New York of my youth is not completely gone is that the second device left in Manhattan was discovered when people tried to steal the suitcase it was stored in. That lives were saved by old-fashioned larceny means that the grit and crime that characterized our streets for decades lives on and in some small way redeems us. It figures this clown came from New Jersey; real New Yorkers know an unattended bag is going to be stolen faster than any detonator.

But like our overcoming the horrors of the September 11 attacks, it fills Americans with pride that New Yorkers did not wallow in horror orself-pity at this incident. We simply kept performing the never-ending calculus of planning around delays and diversions that becomes second-nature. Don’t lead the newscast with a body count, New Yorkers say, tell us which subways are closed. 

Islamic terrorists planted bombs thinking they can stop New Yorkers from drinking in bars. Better people have died trying. 

Fear and Self Affirming Blame in Boston

The cacophony of conflicting information adds self-inflicted insult to the injury of the bombing of the Boston Marathon on Monday. There’s a suspect now, we are told, but no arrest yet.

In the face of horrific random violence, people want to cling to whatever shred of certainty they have. If we can confirm our worldview in the face of such a terrible and unpredictable event, it will give us some miniscule piece of mind perhaps. We may be relatively helpless in the face of terror, but at least we’ll be right about who’s bombing us now.

Therefore we saw many people predicting government conspiracies, right-wing fringe groups, and Islamic terrorists. The Internet was alight with conspiracy theories before the debris settled on Boston’s Boylston Street.

Personally, I doubled down on Muslims being the perpetrator(s). Muslims can be counted on to blow shit up with a mind to take out lots of innocent people. Also, the same day as the bombing, Al Qaeda executed a series of bomb attacks in Iraq that killed 61 people. Also, the mailing of ricin to political leaders could be part of the same coordinated terror effort, with Al Qaeda trying to relive its September 2001 attacks.

Maybe I’ll eat crow. Maybe it will be a lone wolf just wanted to get their jollies killing people.

Either way, we’re going to shake this off and get back to business like champs. Let’s bring the bomber or bombers to swift justice and learn whatever lessons we can from it to prevent another bombing. Let the people of Boston overcome this horror quickly so we can go back to hating them again.