I ceased publication of The Anti-Yale on May 16th and transferred my comments to a new blog entitled PDK Vermonter, because I felt it was unseemly to continue to make posts about current events and assorted mundanities on the same blog where, I, myself, had just been embroiled (May 7th) in a controversy over a matter of life, limb, and death to many people.
Hence the hiatus.
Enough time has passed for me to return to publishing The Anti-Yale without its resumption inadvertently hurting the feelings of those related to that controversy.
That controversy has passed into history, and we see only today that the surviving Tsarnaev brother has pleaded not-guilty to all charges in the Boston bombing.
The post below appeared on the PDK Vermonter blog a week or so ago (July 1), and was the first time I had seen any of the videos resulting from interviews given seven weeks before (also included below).
I could not bring myself to revisit those few days in May until the hatred they evoked had receded.
PDK
LOVE THINE ENEMY?
DECIDE FOR YOURSELF.
NOTE: I had not looked at these or any other television interviews until today, almost eight weeks later. I declined all interviews with a polite "no further comment" but these folks came to my house unannounced and I felt obliged to honor their effort. I also did not want to appear unwillingly on camera refusing to be interviewed--the "Mike Wallace effect."
I decided to offer the burial plot while mowing my lawn in Vermont on the evening of May 6. Mowing provides me time to think and I had been mulling the disgrace of people refusing to bury this man's body.
I stopped the mower mid-row, got off the tractor, and came into the house and wrote the offer on my (now former) blog, The Anti-Yale. CLICK LINK.
I felt it needed Press attention in order for its challenge ---"Love thine enemy"--- to be debated. I decided to permit one---and only one--- interview to break the story.
The only interview I gave voluntarily was to The New Haven Register. I had offered it first to The Yale Daily News with whom I have had a four-year relationship but their editor told me they would be interested only if the Tsarnaev family contacted me. Admittedly, he was in the middle of final exams and tied-up.
I then offered the story to my local Vermont paper, The Valley News, by email. I waited one hour for them to reply (they had closed for the evening) and when they did not do so I contacted the New Haven Register.
They offered to call back the next day.
An hour later they called me back. I guess they realized they had a story on their hands.
The result was a story (LINK) on May 7, the following morning, which set off a controversy . See posts attached to story.
When The Valley News called the morning after I had contacted them , I told them that I had "no further comment" and that I considered the story "to be over."
I have kept my word about 'no further interviews' except for the television folks who appeared at my doorstep and persisted after I said "no further comment".
I wanted peace on my property, thank you, and some of them declined to leave and parked across the street, with camera's out, like hunters waiting for deer.
I also gave a follow-up interview to The New Haven Register as a formality.
On the day of the burial (May 8?) I was emailed and phoned by many news sources to see if my plot had been selected as the site, and I told all of them this simple truth:"No one has contacted me."
I am glad I made the effort and I believe (perhaps immodestly) that the controversy helped break the logjam and provided opportunity for others to step forward with a viable offer.
PDK
July 2, 2013
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