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I just don't get it.  How can she stare into the camera and say so unequivocally that he didn't do it?  When they have pictures of his face on TV, and blogs and tweets about his going radical? "I know my son," she cried. But I'm a mother, too, and I tried to think what I would do, how I would feel, if my son (nearing 12) ever did something like this.  As much as I hate this woman, yes, hate, I sort of understand.  She bore, birthed and raised this man, and much as what he did was despicable, he's still her son. But what does it tell our children if we shield them for their mistakes?  Or deny they made them?  Fortunately I've got a pretty good kid (most of the time) but I know there will come a day when he's going to do something big, wrong.  Will I be tempted to explain it away, or rationalize it ("he was framed"), to act like he didn't do it, or it's no big deal, when really, it's huge? Of course I've denied things in...

So here we are.  The Boston Marathon bombers are dead or captured.  We know no one else (allegedly) was involved.  We also know there's a chance New York was next. So why don't I feel resolved?  Clearly, these two were amateurs (which I guessed from the start, because I suspect the bombs were both supposed to go off at the same time).  But they were able to wreak havoc for four days, even shutting down a major city.  I was alternately fascinated, repelled, and horrified at the brother in the boat, bleeding to death and probably sorry, so sorry, he had done this.  (I don't know how he managed to climb out of the boat unaided, as the next photo we had was of him lying close to death on the ground with oxygen masks and medics all around). And what of the mom and dad in Russia who could not believe their sons did this?  "I know my son," the mother said of the older brother.  How often have I said this about my own child?  And yet, there ...