David McElroy

There are a lot of people who want you to be scared and obsessed with public safety right now. I’d like to suggest that it’s in your best interest — and the best interest of everyone around you — to turn your television off and quit obsessively following the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing.

If you live in Boston or if you have family there or if you somehow have such a personal tie, I understand that you want to keep up with it more than the rest of us. That’s understandable. It’s a local story for you, and it affects you in a personal way. But for the rest of us — the vast majority — it’s worse than a waste of time. It’s creating exactly what terrorists want. (I’m calling the perpetrator of the bombing a terrorist on the assumption that creating terror was his intent. I’m not implying anything about who it might have been or what the person’s cause might be. Because I don’t know.)

Terrorists want you to be scared. Pure and simple. They want you to be looking over your shoulder and wondering when something bad might happen again. They want you to wonder whether it might be in your city next time. They want you to eventually feel that you’re willing to do anything to convince them to leave you alone.

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An explosion went off in Boston Monday. Three people were killed. Close to 200 more were hurt or maimed. That’s about the extent of what we can factually say about what happened toward the end of the Boston Marathon.

As soon as the news of the explosion came out Monday, people across the country started wildly speculating and making ugly accusations. On Facebook, I unfriended and blocked several people because of such nastiness. One faction claimed the entire thing was a “false flag” operation by the U.S. government. (Multiple Facebook groups were set up to make the claim, including this one.) Many people pointed to Middle Eastern terrorists. Still others, including an analyst on CNN, warned of “right wing extremists.”

It seemed that everyone had a political point to make — an accusation to hurl based on the political positions they already held. They were all looking at a virtual ink blot, but each one saw something based on the lens through which he was looking, not based on what was really there.

Back in 1996, there was a bombing in Atlanta during the summer Olympics. A security guard named Richard Jewell was treated as a suspect. He was first called a hero, but police came to suspect him. Media hounded him like hungry wolves. Jewell’s life was destroyed. Eventually, he was cleared. He had had nothing to do with the attacks, but police and media couldn’t take back the ugly and baseless accusations. They couldn’t give Jewell his life back.

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When Meg’s twin sister sprained her ankle over the weekend, Meg suddenly found herself without a playmate on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in West Virginia. So this cute 7-year-old decided to sit on the front porch of the farmhouse where she lives and color — and this is what she came up with. (Click the picture to see it full size.)

She calls it The Rainbow Shop. She gives her creations away to whoever wants them. You’ll notice her sign says, “It’s Free,” as well as, “You don’t have to spend money.” Her mom told me Monday afternoon that it was Meg’s way of coming up with something to do on a day when she would have normally been running and playing with her sister, but it was also because, “I guess she thought her sister could use some cheering up, too.”

We live in a very screwed-up world. You don’t have to look very far to notice that, especially on a day such as today, when the news is full of grim reports from the explosions at the Boston Marathon.

But don’t let yourself be dragged into negativity by thinking that’s all the world is. There’s beauty, creativity and opportunity all around you, right in the midst of disaster, pain and ugliness.

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