Thursday, July 07, 2005

How long, how long must we sing this song?

This morning has been a flurry of communication between my friends across the country, reporting on our friends across the sea.

Friends that are luckily lazy and overslept and missed trains they should have been on.

Friends that got to work early and watched buses explode from their offices down the street.

Friends who have very long walks home tonight.

And the friends we're still waiting for word on.

What can you do?

But on NPR this morning, I heard an official say:

Well, we always knew it was a matter of when, not if. The terrorists only have to get lucky once, you know, and we have to be lucky all the time. The British public understands this.


Which an American official would never tell us. Never be so frank as to say that all we can do is be prepared to deal with fallout. Have a plan for when it happens to reduce casualties. A better plan than screaming "run for your lives" when a plane violates the no-fly zone over the capitol.

Oh London. London. London. London.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey jennie,

hope all your friends across the sea are ok!

kp
(from knit class)

Anonymous said...

I wonder though if all the British people are doing what the Americans would definitely do. Who's fault is it in the government for not stopping it? Who can we sue? I wonder sometimes if the run for your life attitude of the governmetn isn't because they are afraid if one person gets hurt or killed they will be to blame. The Brits are great but I most certainly think a lot of the
"American" attitudes and reactitons can be blamed on the public's attitudes and less on the government who are mostly swayed by public opinion.

Anonymous said...

The reaction of the government has nothing to do with worrying about people getting hurt. If the government worried about people getting hurt or killed then they would improve road conditions so that 10s of thousands of americans didn't die every year. Or how about making a federal law to ban smoking in public places to protect non-smokers from 2nd hand smoke (instead small businesses are making the step). Or how about guns...

Hugs Jen...ps need to talk arthritis with you when I get back