CONSIDER THIS: Thank God it was Friday

By MICHAEL RODRIGUEZ
Managing Editor
editor@sbnewspaper.com

Michael Rodriguez

It was hours before I got any real work done on Friday. Every time I tried to focus, I heard another update in the manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. I even started my day learning about what had transpired just hours earlier; beginning with reports of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the other Boston Marathon bombing suspect and Dzhokhar’s older brother, being killed during an exchange of gunfire with police; then hearing his own brother ran over him in a vehicle; martial law imposed in Boston and the proud city placed on lock down.

Wow.

What is it that I was supposed to do again? Oh yes! That’s right… I’m the managing editor of the San Benito News and I’ve got a newspaper that needs to be published.

I just couldn’t help but think that while it was a crazy end to a crazy week, there was something about all that we as a nation have endured recently that felt manageable – manageable because (you can call me crazy for saying this) we’re safe. I know what you’re thinking: How on earth could we, the people of the United States of America, who feel as though we’ve grown increasingly vulnerable when thousands of our citizens were murdered in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania; whose casualties in the subsequent Iraq and Afghanistan wars near 5,000; whose moviegoers are gunned down; whose children are slaughtered at school; and whose participants and spectators of a popular American tradition become the targets for bombings ever feel safe again?

Then there’s the week spanning April 15-19, when the Boston Marathon bombings claimed lives and limbs on Monday; when the West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion took the same and much more on Wednesday; and when the deadly manhunt on Friday shut down one of this country’s greatest cities.

Still, I feel safe as an American citizen not because I live in a small town that may never experience such horrors, but because there will always be somebody to stop my bleeding using anything they can find as a tourniquet, to put out my flames with their bare hands, to continue running for two more miles after already running for 26 miles in a marathon just to give blood that I may need to save my life. We as Americans are safe because we as Americans help keep us safe, no matter what we face or how evil will next manifest itself.

In a rare moment in which he broke character, Stephen Colbert said it best on Tuesday when he dedicated his monologue to Bostonians: “These maniacs may have tried to make life bad for the people of Boston, but all they can ever do is show just how good those people are.”

So I returned to work (albeit with a live news feed still on in the background) focused on the task at hand, yes, but relieved that no matter what tragedy befalls us, the will to overcome and transcend remains our greatest strength. Now that’s news we love to report.

Consider further that what occurred on Friday should remind us that while we may begin a week mourning the loss of life and reeling from the effects of yet another attack on American soil, there’s always an end to despair in sight. So thank God Friday came.

I was actually going to write about something else this week. But… I don’t know. I’d rather not be dismissive of the topic in which I planned to discuss, being that it is a matter of importance to our area, but it did seem quite trivial given the circumstances. But don’t worry, I’ll be addressing the matter next week.

In the meantime, I suggest everyone take a minute away from all the media coverage and enjoy themselves this weekend. That’s what I’ll be doing. After all, there’s nothing I’d rather do than enjoy my freedoms. I just might catch a movie; I may even try to run a marathon. Well, I’ll start with the movie.