An English Weekend

The English had a full plate this weekend, what with Northern England suffering more than $2 billion in property damage after torrential rains killed four people and damaged more than 27,000 homes and 5,000 businesses, with more rain to come; Wimbledon moved into the quarterfinals; Princes Harry and William hosted a concert in memory of their mother, Princess Diana, at Wembley Stadium; and, of course … two men rammed a jeep into an entrance at Glasgow Airport in Scotland (after an unsuccessful double car bombing in London).

I found No Quarter (via Atrios) on-point this Saturday (“Glasgow’s Burning–Run For Your Lives”) in intentionally playing with scale … as I’ve tried to do above.

Seems like part of our post-9/11, post-Bush GWOT “growing up” has to do with putting terrorism and terror attacks (and/or “terror incidents“) into some kind of perspective.

(image 1: Darren Staples/Reuters. June 30, 2007. Toll Bar, northern England. image 2: Joe Klamar/AFP. June 29, 2007. Wimbledon. image 3: Leon Neal/AFP. London. July 1, 2007. image 4: Alistair Robertson/PA/AP. Glasgow, Scotland. June 30, 2007. All via YahooNews)

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Mixed Messages

The Libby Decision: Dispensing With The Lip Service

PTate in FR

What an interesting set of events you choose to put the London terrorist attacks in perspective: Sports and a concert for a dead Princess-both circus (as in “bread and circus”) events to amuse and divert the crowds; and on the other hand, one incident that may be related to global climate change and another that is related to a group of violent individuals who hate the West.
Denial can take many forms, and over-reaction can take different forms. Should people run away from Glascow in fear? No. Should they normalize car bombs as an everyday occurrence like a concert or a car accident? I would say no to that, too. On the other hand, the best way to extinquish undesired behaviors is to ignore them. At present, terrorists are positively reinforced by the scale of the response to their occasional threat or successful devastation. Nations quiver and bow before them.
But it is so complex! Enjoying a tennis victory is easier to comprehend. What should one do with the information that none of the five people picked up so far in the incident were born in the UK or that the ubiquitous surveillance cameras got a very clear image of the perpetrators? Is loss of public privacy in the UK a small price to pay for the advantages of living in a global society where strangers can move freely across borders?
margaret

We had our own “bomb” scare, yesterday, in my hometown, closing the city center, inconveniencing people there to attend museums, etc., and all because of a deranged man with an arabic-sounding name who was running back and forth on the street yelling he was going to “blow up” the city and “allah”……meanwhile…..everyone else was having family time with their “tribes” in the suburbs, relaxing, and oblivious………..back downtown, several hours later, the “culprit” was arrested after police found absolutely nothing in his car or on his person. Cynic that I am, I suspect the whole event was staged, so that the police could get some terrorism-practice time in. Since my hometown has the highest murder rate in our state, the allocation of so much law-enforcement resources to this “exercise” was not too wise. Genuine terrorism consists of the element of surprise.
margaret

An update on my comment, above:
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/070307/met_181745579.shtml
It seems, the “terroritst” was a love-sick Moroccan……
Kitt

I still think the waiting Scotsman interviewed, while sitting in said hospital, about the bombing – fear – panic – et. al.: “When I’m ready to go, I’ll leave.”
(Lovesick Moroccan, indeed….)
http://molly.douthett.net lowly grunt

off topic
I never gave much credence to the hints that someone other than Charles was Harry’s dad but that pic makes me wonder…..
ummabdulla

I saw this photo in my newspaper of Prince Charles touring one of the flooded areas in a dinghy.
If the photographer had managed to get just the dinghy, it would have been very different. But when you can see all the guys walking near him and pulling him, you can see that the water doesn’t even reach their knees, and he just looks silly.