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Cambridge MA "a progressive town, the People's Republic, and how could this be in our midst?"
Cambridge prides itself on embracing people from across the world, people of different religions and cultures, people, in other words, like Tamerlan and Dzhokhor Tsarnaev.Embracing, as they are, the notion that "progress" in any direction -- up, down, left, right, in, out -- is good.
They attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin, the city's only public high school, where the student body includes teenagers from 80 nations. They found religious brethren at the Islamic Society of Boston on Prospect Street, a short walk from their home on Norfolk Street, near Central Square. They found friends, coaches, mentors. Dzhokhor even won a scholarship from the city. And then it all shattered on Friday... Perhaps more than anywhere else, people here were grasping for answers. "This is a progressive town, the People's Republic, and how could this be in our midst?" said Larry Aaronson, a longtime Rindge and Latin teacher who knew Dzhokhor and who lives three doors down from the brothers on Norfolk Street. "I'm at a loss. I'm at a total and complete loss." Peter Payack, the assistant wrestling coach at Rindge and Latin, said Dzhokhor wrestled on the team for three years and was captain for two years and a Greater Boston League all-star.... Payack, who has run the Marathon 24 times and often wears his blue-and-yellow Marathon jacket around Cambridge, said he was saddened that Dzhokhor has been accused of targeting a race that he knew his coach loved. "It was like a bomb going off in my heart this morning," Payack said. City leaders said they expected there would have to be some soul-searching in the days ahead. "That we have a relationship to the people who perpetrated this, it does cause one pause, because we all truly believe we are the best community we could be," Councilor Kenneth E. Reeves said. "I would almost think the Cambridge experience couldn't incubate a terrorist because that's how oriented toward peace and community this city believes itself to be." I signed a memorial book in the vestibule of St. Paul's in Cambridge the Sunday after 9/11, dedicated to the memory of parishioners & residents of Cambridge killed during the hijackings. 9/11 apparently made little impression on the city. Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2013-04-21 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=366511 |