Scribblings

So the Joker scrawled a note in the boat:

The note -- scrawled with a marker on the interior wall of the cabin -- said the bombings were retribution for U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, and called the Boston victims "collateral damage" in the same way Muslims have been in the American-led wars.

Of course, this wasn't a case of collateral damage, which involves aiming at a military target and incidentally killing the innocent. This was a case of aiming at the innocent.

Even monsters cling to their rationalizations, I guess.

It's interesting that the note was held back for a month. It speaks directly to motive. Pretty hard now to say this wasn't another case of... whatever we officially call it now... you know, this thing where various people declare that their Quran-based religion requires them to kill us.

I'm not sure how the "self-radicalization" narrative is going. That's the one where it somehow makes a big difference that Joker and Speedbump were not recruited by Al Qaeda... they were just deeply influenced by internet articles... which were posted by Al Qaeda followers.

So, Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts, what were you thinking?

The governor said he has no idea why someone would deliberately harm "innocent men, women and children in the way that these two fellows did."

Really. No idea. He seems to have said this on the Sunday after the capture. Didn't any of his state troopers tell him about the note in the boat?

I figure they told him. I think he knew. I think he had a clue.

I figure he just couldn't figure
how on earth to say
what the motive was
in a properly delicate way.