Back online

After an incredibly annoying series of days with no internet access, I'm back online. The house people decided it would be prudent to cut the internet room in half, using the other half as a storage area. Every day this week it's been, "you'll have access again tomorrow". Typically, we had to wait until Saturday to get it back. I'm withholding my rent just to piss them off in response.

Anyway, Thursday saw yet another attempt to inflict mass murder on innocent civilians here in London. Fortunately, this attempt was a total failure. I was pretty shocked that they are so bold as to try again, especially with the heightened security. Of course, they did it around midday, which has less security, and they did it in less strategically valuable areas this time. I mean, no offense to the people that live in the effected areas, but they're not exactly the nicest or the most vital for London transport as a whole.

I was having lunch with Eurotrash when all the nonsense went down. We got a call from the Roving Alcoholic who told me all about it. So, since the Tube was closed, we did some shopping for a couple hours (£15 jeans!) and enjoyed a lazy afternoon. I ended up walking all the way home (very long and tiring) while Eurotrash walked, took twoseparatee taxis, and walked some more. He lives in Oval, which is one of the stations that was targeted.

The thing I really find surprising is that no one decked the bastard as he fled the station. There were some people after him, but I imagine confusion and the sparcity of mid-day commuters allowed him to escape. Try that at the rush hour and I expect some burly British bloke will not only deck the guy, but beat the crap out of him as well. When we were trying to find information on our very long walks home, we asked a Tube lady what the story was. She briefed us and then said, "I hope they catch them alive so we can beat the sh*t out of them." The average Englander is not going to be overly concerned with human rights in this particular manhunt. In fact, I fully expect that Dragnet "balls in the desk drawer" style treatment is forthcoming. I sure as hell wouldn't want to be one of the suspects.

At any rate, there are two reactions that I had after this latest event, well, aside from surprise. About an hour before it happened, Eurotrash and I were commenting that we didn't think they would try to strike transport again because there are tons of other targets and the idea behind terrorism is to instill fear and vulnerability. Attacking transport does instill that vulnerability, but traditionally (Israel, IRA, etc) terrorists have struck a variety of targets to instill fear in the average citizen everywhere they go. So, it's nice to eat our words so quickly and all.

Back to my thoughts on this. First, I'm not about to stop taking the Tube and buses simply because some jackasses are on the prowl to blow sh*t up. This is the message from the government here, "go about your lives," yada yada. What I would say to Tony Blair is, easy for you to say with your bulletproof cars, high tech flying machines, and world class security. The rest of us commoners have little choice but to use the Tube. It's either that or get a bike and I'm not so inclined to get a bike and ride on these streets. That seems more dangerous than the risk of terror. But even beyond that, it's a city of 7 million people and 55 (0.07%) or so died in a terrorist event. Tragic, yes, but not shaking to the point that you feel the urge to bolt the city. Instead, I'm just going to do what everyone else is doing - be observant, look for dark skinned men with rucksacks, and get ready to tackle someone if they look like they're going to set off a bomb (or wear trainers and ready myself to run screaming). And yeah, it's dark skinned men with rucksacks. I'll broker no PC on this one because we know who's trying to blow sh*t up and it ain't a bunch of Irishmen.

The second thought thatoccurredd to me is that I'm not packing up and leaving this town just because it appears to be on the terror hit list. That would be ultimately very silly. Instead, I'm going to stick to my plan of working on my thesis, getting some temp work, and looking for a job. It would be lovely to stay here (I waver back and forth every day it seems) so if I can get a job, I'll stick around for a bit. If I can't, then I'll be happy to do some traveling and then head back to the States. But I sure as hell ain't going to let a bunch of f*ckbags make that decision for me. I'll decide on circumstance and opportunity.

Anyway, the joke going around London now is that they used to have penalty fares on the Tube if you didn't have a ticket. Now they hunt you down, put a gun to your head, and bang bang bang bang bang. Pay the fare or die.

PS - Did anyone else think Condi Rice's trip to Sudan was entirely bizarre? I mean I know that this administration is run by the cold hard reality of geopolitics to the detriment of all other concerns (i.e. our fabled ally Pakistan), but what could they be thinking? They've already labeled the ongoing conflict in Darfur genocide, how could they possibly think it was a good idea to rub elbows with a genocidal dictator? Unless, of course, the leader there is "democratically" elected. For shame. You'd think we learned our lesson by cozying up to Saddam Hussein in the 80's because we wanted to counter Iran's influence in the Middle East. But, shockingly, we haven't. Smart people like Condi Rice continue to make the mistakes that smart people before her made. Fun.