It’s quarter past 11. I should have been asleep an hour ago but a combination of dinner disagreeing with me and various iTunes TV season passes have conspired to keep me awake. This post is pretty much guaranteed to be a rambler.

Think back to September 11, 2001. What is the lasting image that sticks with you? Your first thought is probably something awful. The planes, the collapses, those poor souls who jumped. Those images are sort of burned into our national identity in a way. Much the way that I’ve always assumed the Kennedy assassination, or Pearl Harbor were. Yesterday’s Boston Marathon bombing is never going to approach those events, but it is still going to leave a mark on us.

Dig a little deeper into your memories though. After you get passed the shock, what comes to mind? For me it’s the images of people running toward the danger. It’s the average everyday schmuck going against his douchy nature and helping his fellow man through the shit. When I think of all of those emergency personnel running into those buildings, and all of the people helping each other to get out to safety, and all of those people from all walks of life throwing caution to the wind and helping out, that’s when my anger abates. That’s when I stop being afraid. That’s when I know without question that we as a people are better than this. For every asshole who sets off a bomb in a crowd there are probably half a billion who unite against such actions.

We saw those people in Boston yesterday. We saw them running toward the explosions. We saw them carrying the wounded from the scene. We saw the best of us. We saw it in my town and I am so filled with pride.

We have had a little time to absorb it all now. It has sunk in once again that this is the world we live in. We are a free and open society and there will always be a risk that some slime is going to take advantage of the situation and abuse it. But after seeing the worst of us for a few seconds, and the best of us for a little more than a day I start wanting answers. Of course at this point there are no answers so I start to hope for certain kinds of answers.

I sincerely hope that the FBI catches the culprits and they don’t turn out to be religious extremists. I am so friggin sick of people in this country assuming that all the world’s evil stems from Islam. There is just as much evil hiding behind Christianity. If you don’t believe me, look up the westboro baptist church. There is just as much evil hiding behind bullshit political idiocy. If you don’t believe me, look up The Oklahoma City bombing.

I wanted to be told by the Feds that the guilty party was one asshole who was mad because his mommy didn’t love him enough, or because the other kids always picked him last when they played kickball at recess. In other words, some batshit crazy asshole. I don’t think that’s going to be the case though. Logically, if the reports are correct and the bombs were made out of six liter pressure cookers and were carried in nylon backpacks, then the chances of one person planting both bombs seems non existent. I don’t see that particular wish coming true.

It’s now quarter to midnight and my eyelids are finally getting heavy. It’s time for bed now. Before I go, let me just say again that we saw the best of us yesterday. We saw true heroism. We saw people uniting to help their fellow man. It proves that attacks like this will never defeat us. We are better than those who wish to harm us senselessly. Boston, I’m wicked proud of you.

This is the second bomb going off.  It was filmed by one of the runners, who rightly turned around and ran in the other direction after it happened.