Why Can't We See That Boston Is More Like Newtown Than 9/11? [View all]

[Coyotl]

Why Can't We See That Boston Is More Like Newtown Than 9/11?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-alexander-meyers/boston-terrorism-newtown-shooting_b_3139500.html

A week of intense and rapid events in Boston. We are saturated after a flood of words and images. A clear description of what happened is emerging. White hat. Black hat. Two loaded bags infiltrated into the crowd. Boom. And again. Suspects on the run. One dead, the other captured. Beyond bare bones the detail, its sheer quantity, is uncanny. And still these chaotic and riveting scenes, where do they take us?

A bomb in the streets of Boston is something new. We judge the new by what we know. Only by saying what it looks like can we understand what it is. And it is from there -- appearance and belief -- that our reactions will, for good or for ill, take their course. That is why pretty much everything depends on what we see when we look at the screen. At that crossroads words and images catalyze and explode.

However charged with meaning, pictures do not speak for themselves. From shock to fear to terror. The story-machine of imagination stretches out from the image. It's the words and the wordsmiths that over and over tutor interpretation. That's what builds the doors and gateways of the public sphere, that's where choice chooses and action moves us.

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