Jahar's World (Rolling Stone article about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Boston bomber)

[DonViejo]

He was a charming kid with a bright future. But no one saw the pain he was hiding or the monster he would become.

By Janet Reitman
July 17, 2013 11:00 AM ET

Our hearts go out to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, and our thoughts are always with them and their families. The cover story we are publishing this week falls within the traditions of journalism and Rolling Stone’s long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day. The fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is young, and in the same age group as many of our readers, makes it all the more important for us to examine the complexities of this issue and gain a more complete understanding of how a tragedy like this happens. –
THE EDITORS

Peter Payack awoke around 4 a.m. on April 19th, 2013, and saw on his TV the grainy surveillance photo of the kid walking out of the minimart. The boy, identified as "Suspect #2" in the Boston bombing, looked familiar, thought Payack, a wrestling coach at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. On the other hand, there were a million skinny kids with vaguely ethnic features and light-gray hoodies in the Boston area, and half the city was probably thinking they recognized the suspect. Payack, who'd been near the marathon finish line on the day of the bombing and had lost half of his hearing from the blast, had hardly slept in four days. But he was too agitated to go back to bed. Later that morning, he received a telephone call from his son. The kid in the photo? "Dad, that's Jahar."

"I felt like a bullet went through my heart," the coach recalls. "To think that a kid we mentored and loved like a son could have been responsible for all this death. It was beyond shocking. It was like an alternative reality."

People in Cambridge thought of 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – "Jahar" to his friends – as a beautiful, tousle-haired boy with a gentle demeanor, soulful brown eyes and the kind of shy, laid-back manner that "made him that dude you could always just vibe with," one friend says. He had been a captain of the Cambridge Rindge and Latin wrestling team for two years and a promising student. He was also "just a normal American kid," as his friends described him, who liked soccer, hip-hop, girls; obsessed over The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones; and smoked a copious amount of weed.



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/jahars-world-20130717#ixzz2ZP2qQ72o

[darkangel218]

1. IMHO it was wrong of RS to have this person on the cover

Considering the atrocities he has commited.

Didn't they think about his victims at all?

Grrrrrr

[Bluenorthwest]

2. It is not as if he is the first criminal to be on their cover or on other magazines.

They had Charles Manson on their cover. Bin Laden has been on dozens and dozens of magazine covers. Where was your outrage then?
On DU I read the CBS interview with the Uncle of the Bombers a man named Ruslan who said the younger one was, and I quote " just another victim" and folks on DU said they agreed and there was much, much praise and love for 'Uncle Ruslan'. Why can HE say the kid is a fucking victim and be lauded while Rolling Stone is calling him a monster and a bomber and being criticized?
This is from the Boston Globe, the article has a video with pictures of Dzhokar as well as folks talking about how much they liked him. The BOSTON GLOBE.

"The younger brother, Dzhokhar (pronounced Ja-HAR), seemed less troubled, people who knew him said, a friendly, relaxed teenager called “an angel” by his uncle and a party-loving “pothead” by some friends."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/19/relatives-marathon-bombing-suspects-worried-that-older-brother-was-corrupting-sweet-younger-sibling/UCYHkiP9nfsjAtMjJPWJJL/story.html

[darkangel218]

3. Where was my outrage then??

How do you know I wasn't just as outraged then as I am now? You don't know me from Adam, yet you assume things about me only because your pov is different than mine.

Go to Boston and ask people there how they feel about it. Tell them the same thing you told me, and see how well that goes.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Where was Boston's outrage when the Boston Globe published this?

Can you or they explain the difference? Why is one awful yet the other was just fine and dandy? Be specific. One article offends you, the other does not. Why the difference?
Bostonian threats do not explain why they are fine with the Globe but frothy about Rolling Stone. Can you explain it? Did you look at the link? Of course you did not.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/19/relatives-marathon-bombing-suspects-worried-that-older-brother-was-corrupting-sweet-younger-sibling/UCYHkiP9nfsjAtMjJPWJJL/story.html

[darkangel218]

6. Boston Globe is a freaking newspaper, whereas RS is a national magazine

That sits on the stands of almost every store/shop in the US. What happened in Boston affected alot of people. I'm glad to see you have gotten over it so well. Others haven't, some never will.

It is not up to you to decide how people feel about it. You can disagree with us, but you can't tell us what to feel. That simple.
Have a nice day, blue.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. I am asking you to explain why you are offended by one but not the other and

that's too much for you? Same content, same photos, but only one publication gets your ire, the others don't. Wildly inconsistent.
I am asking you why you say you feel so differently about one publication when others have done the same, including publications in Boston. Asking, not telling.
You are free to take any absurd stance you wish to take, just don't expect others to join in. No one is telling you how to feel. That is just a fucked up thing to say, for I have not done that. I have asked you to inform me about your thinking, and you have returned only personal insults. It is you who seems to feel the right to dictate how others feel without inquiry discussion or exchange of ideas.

[darkangel218]

7. "Did you look at the link? Of course you did not. "

I pass on your attacks and flambait. You're blocked, have a nice stay on DU.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. If you looked at the link, you might have compared and contrasted the two pieces

as asked. Clearly the article at the link challenges your stance as it is Bostonian and very similar to the Rolling Stone piece.
Making personal snark and threats does not persuade. That's all you have, because your attack on Rolling Stone is arbitrary and inconsistent to the reaction to many similar articles and the NY Times use of the same photo on page one in May.

[Bluenorthwest]

5. Same photo was the NY Times Page One above the fold on May 5, 2013

And Boston had nary a word to say...

[sinkingfeeling]

10. It's a well written article. It in no way answers the questions on the

cover nor does it, in any way, glorify him.

[Igel]

11. My take.

It's possible to publish the photo with a story without much criticism. As long as the story is, "He looks innocent, but he's a monster." Then the dissonance drives home the point.

It's possible to publish a story that focuses on understanding the Tsarnaevs. In the sense of following his reasoning, seeing what makes him tick. This is always risky, of course, and has to be handled delicated. Disinterestedly. Dispassionately. Because he hurt a lot of people and the purpose should be to figure out how to avoid this kind of thing--and spot it. Take-away message: Prevention and detection is our best self-defense.

However, "understanding" has come to be a weasel word, where it can mean "logical analysis" but also emotion, empathy, even sympathy. "You just don't understand my situation" is used to imply that if you *really* understood, obviously you wouldn'g punish, judge, or allow the situation to continue. The RS article is inconclusive. After a lot showing that he was a decent guy, if reticent, with all kinds of nifty testimonials from the kinds of people we know and put credence in, the "negative", logical understanding comes from those that we don't like. FBI folk, for instance. In the end we've spent most of our time thinking that we are all Tsarnaev, except for something that somebody should have found and corrected. If he's Anykid with a minor flaw, he could be any of us. And nobody in their right mind can judge him harshly.

With that kind of article, you don't want that kind of picture. This kind of story sits well with certain groups of people. Not with most.