On Mute.
Well, we've learned an important lesson this morning.
Try to make anything on an international scale have anything to do with anything OTHER than terrorism, and al qaeda will do the unspeakable. Everyone knows I hate to write politically, and I hate to read other people's commentary on politics, but right now I've got to say a few things to counter the slew of bullshit we're all about to hear.
Until I hear something convincing to the contrary, I will not believe that today's attacks had much of anything to do with GW or the fucking "War against terror." It'd be easy to spout that bullshit, but then try to explain mf'ing 9/11. Today was slated to be the first day of the G8 summit in London, a summit I was very much interested in as it has nothing to do with terrorism. Unlike the topics for the past few years, Tony Blair decided to stand up and talk, not about the Middle East, EU, or other Western-centric issues, but about global poverty. More specifically: famine in Africa. And what did al qaeda do in response? Kill an unknown number of people so that we'd continue to focus on, and fear, them.
This says nothing of my opinion of American involvement in Iraq, it says only that to say that London was attacked solely because of its alliance to America is bullshit that I don't really want to hear. I realize this means I'll have to stay away from American media for a couple of weeks, but hell, I'm leaving for Europe next Tuesday anyway. That is, if I still am able to go after all this mess.
Most worrisome: Patrick's sister Tara, who was vacationing in Sri Lanka over Christmas break, lives in innercity London, and I've yet to hear anything about her.
Jesus fucking christ.
Thankfully, however, if one can even be thankful about such things without seeming catty and selfish? My mother has already been able to contact some of our friends in England, and they're calm and well. We've sent emails to the rest, and the government is estimating low casualties. Maybe the government estimate of 100 or fewer fatalities will be correct...as awful as that would be, I think we have to hope for that at this point.
Try to make anything on an international scale have anything to do with anything OTHER than terrorism, and al qaeda will do the unspeakable. Everyone knows I hate to write politically, and I hate to read other people's commentary on politics, but right now I've got to say a few things to counter the slew of bullshit we're all about to hear.
Until I hear something convincing to the contrary, I will not believe that today's attacks had much of anything to do with GW or the fucking "War against terror." It'd be easy to spout that bullshit, but then try to explain mf'ing 9/11. Today was slated to be the first day of the G8 summit in London, a summit I was very much interested in as it has nothing to do with terrorism. Unlike the topics for the past few years, Tony Blair decided to stand up and talk, not about the Middle East, EU, or other Western-centric issues, but about global poverty. More specifically: famine in Africa. And what did al qaeda do in response? Kill an unknown number of people so that we'd continue to focus on, and fear, them.
This says nothing of my opinion of American involvement in Iraq, it says only that to say that London was attacked solely because of its alliance to America is bullshit that I don't really want to hear. I realize this means I'll have to stay away from American media for a couple of weeks, but hell, I'm leaving for Europe next Tuesday anyway. That is, if I still am able to go after all this mess.
Most worrisome: Patrick's sister Tara, who was vacationing in Sri Lanka over Christmas break, lives in innercity London, and I've yet to hear anything about her.
Jesus fucking christ.
Thankfully, however, if one can even be thankful about such things without seeming catty and selfish? My mother has already been able to contact some of our friends in England, and they're calm and well. We've sent emails to the rest, and the government is estimating low casualties. Maybe the government estimate of 100 or fewer fatalities will be correct...as awful as that would be, I think we have to hope for that at this point.