Writing on the Boston Marathon bombing - by Sean Flynn & Eric Moskowitz

I've previously done three different posts linking to great writing about the Boston Marathon bombing and recently there's been two additional stories that I found excellent.

The July issue of GQ Magazine featured "The Finish Line" by Sean Flynn and for the Boston Globe two weeks ago was "Amid death and anguish of bombing, a gift of life" by Eric Moskowitz.

Flynn recounts the day of the bombing through the stories of AP photographer Charles Krupa, bombing victim (and man who provided a description of Tamerlan Tsarnaev) Jeff Bauman, Boston Police Superintendent of Field Services William Evans and experienced medical volunteers Michael Powers and Stephen Segatore. The piece jumps between the various people's stories in a rough chronological order and is a captivating telling of the events.

The Moskowitz feature is on couple Caroline Reinsch and Christian Williams and how as each recuperated from injuries suffered in the bombing, Reinsch discovered the pregnancy they'd hoped for was now a reality. Just a really great story done well by Moskowitz.

Great sports stories - by Jones, Lake & Watson

There's three pieces of sports writing I've seen over the past few weeks that struck me as particularly solid and are available now to post online.

From the May 13 issue of ESPN The Magazine was the back page column "Boston Strong" by Chris Jones. Really compelling and short piece on Boston and what the 2014 Marathon could be like.

In the Sports Illustrated May 13 edition was a feature by Thomas Lake titled "Drinking and Driving and Dying". It's excellent writing about the long history of high profile DUI accidents caused by professional athletes with particular focus on the death last December of Dallas Cowboys player Jerry Brown with his teammate Josh Brent behind the wheel.

Finally, another piece that struck me was the heartwarming story "Athletic departments work together to save college football reporter’s life" by Graham Watson for Yahoo Sports. Recounted in the piece is how Wyoming assistant athletic director Tim Harkins during a phone interview with freelance journalist Natalie Meisler recognized that she might be having a stroke and tracked down her location so emergency personnel could respond.

Writing on Boston & on Guns - by Charlie Pierce & Gabrielle Giffords

It's somewhat remarkable to me that conversation around the Boston Marathon bombing would be completely separate from the larger question of weapons (i.e. guns) and the ease in which people can get them, but that certainly seems to be the case over the past week. While many people (myself included) closely followed the aftermath of the bombing and manhunt yesterday for apparent co-perpetrator Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to block legislation strengthening background checks on gun sales.

On the subject of the Sentate actions (or inactions) were two great pieces of writing, with one from former U.S. Congresswomen Gabrille Giffords and one from Esquire writer Charlie Pierce, with Pierce more recently writing another piece that felt very much related.

The writing by Giffords was "A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip" published in the New York Times and an extremely direct and well written op-ed piece from someone in a position to write about gun violence.

From Pierce for the Esquire website the morning after the Senate inaction around background checks was "The Violence We Live With". It's a powerful essay that opines how we as American people seem to deplore horrific violence while at the same time accept that it's going to happen sometimes and not take steps that could curb it. It was a tremendously interesting idea put forth by Pierce and another Esquire piece of his published this morning had a similar notion in it to me.

"Guns Along The River: A Late Night In Watertown" was about the manhunt for Tsarnaev yesterday and exceptional writing.The thing that got me more than any other from his more recent piece was the repeated phrase "cops being cops" and Pierce writing of how capture of Tsarnaev means he can (and as he should) go to trial in our U.S. court system like any other criminal.

My thought out of this was that while the violence was much more high profile than that done by a "typical criminal with weapons", it's still violence resulting in the death of innocent people, just like the violence perpetrated by Jared Loughner in Tucson, James Holmes in Aurora or Adam Lanza in Newtown. It's a great thing that Tsarnaev will be tried for his crimes, but what will be interesting to see is whether the crimes committed have any impact on U.S. perception of violence or lawmakers reactions around violence through various means.

Would be a shame if the response is for Congressional leaders and other decision makers to either (A) accept that these things can happen and not try to look at additional ways to prevent it (basically what Pierce wrote in his essay about gun violence) or (B) put the Boston bombing in a specific bucket and try to stop that (i.e. make pressure cookers illegal). While this hypothetical option B may seem absurd, anyone that's had to pour out water or take off their shoes in an airport security line may recognize it as an approach that we've taken before.

Writing on the Boston Marathon Bombing

Not to simply list out great writing (well, actually, exactly to simply list out great writing) since the Boston Marathon bombing, there's been some amazing work done, both poignant and well reported with the pieces below being those that have stood out to me the most.

In the poignant essay category were pieces by Patton Oswalt and Joe Posnanski with Oswalt doing a Facebook post about good people and Posnanski's essay on his personal blog containing the same notion with his last sentence of "There are exponentially more good people than bad."

The piece of writing reported from the scene that I found most memorable was "In Grisly Image, a Father Sees His Son" by Tim Rohan for the New York Times. Recounted is the story of Jeff Bauman, a marathon spectator who lost both his legs at the scene. While the piece certainly contains a graphic image and some difficult to read text, it's also an inspiring depiction of helping others with Rohan's description of Carlos Arredondo (the subject of NYT piece from 2007 that Rohan links to) coming to Bauman's aide. Incredibly, there's a story that's come out just this evening on Bauman with "Boston Bombing Victim in Iconic Photo Helped Identify Attackers" by Asjylyn Loder & Esmé E. Deprez for Bloomberg.

The final pieces to note here contained details about the response of emergency personnel to the bombing and injuries with a New Yorker essay "Why Boston's Hospital's Were Ready" by noted author and Boston area surgeon Atul Gawande and "First responders to Boston bombings get relief, postgame beers from grateful Bruins" by Les Carpenter for Yahoo Sports.

Finally, it's of course not a piece of writing, but here was footage from the Boston Garden two nights after the bombing...