Quite a day yesterday across the pond, eh?
Jul. 8th, 2005 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iamomI woke up to the news of the explosions, which they were still being called at the time, and immediately tried to phone my good friend Christian who lives in London. Of course, I couldn't get through because half the world was probably trying to do the same thing, so I sent an e-mail to him instead. Eventually I called his mom, who lives in Surrey (fairly far from London), and she told me that Christian was visiting his girlfriend in Vancouver, so there was nothing to worry about. Whew.
Gwynne Dyer's commentary on the bombings this morning on CBC Radio One was interesting -- especially for the sake of perspective. He said that yesterday's attacks were the 118th, 119th, 120th, and 121st terrorist attacks in London since 1974. Very interesting. He also said that about 400 people die in the natural course of events in London each day, and that yesterday, that number just happened to be about 10% higher -- about 450 instead of 400. He actually said "get a grip" at one point, which made me laugh out loud.
To be sure, suicide bombers routinely kill that many or more on a fairly regular basis in the Middle East, so it's at least ironic, if not insidiously racist, that such a big deal was made of yesterday's attacks.
Isn't it?
In other news, you MUST play with this guy, memed via![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wickenden. He says it's what music feels like to him. To me, it feels like swimming.
And in yet other news, I'm still feeling pretty sick from the cold I caught earlier this week (all three of us have been taken out with it), but hopefully I'll be feeling better for tomorrow night's gig with our quartet.
Gwynne Dyer's commentary on the bombings this morning on CBC Radio One was interesting -- especially for the sake of perspective. He said that yesterday's attacks were the 118th, 119th, 120th, and 121st terrorist attacks in London since 1974. Very interesting. He also said that about 400 people die in the natural course of events in London each day, and that yesterday, that number just happened to be about 10% higher -- about 450 instead of 400. He actually said "get a grip" at one point, which made me laugh out loud.
To be sure, suicide bombers routinely kill that many or more on a fairly regular basis in the Middle East, so it's at least ironic, if not insidiously racist, that such a big deal was made of yesterday's attacks.
Isn't it?
In other news, you MUST play with this guy, memed via
wickenden. He says it's what music feels like to him. To me, it feels like swimming.And in yet other news, I'm still feeling pretty sick from the cold I caught earlier this week (all three of us have been taken out with it), but hopefully I'll be feeling better for tomorrow night's gig with our quartet.
