on the lighter side...

[electricland]

via bookslut and claris, Warren Ellis observes:

Oh, here we go; footage of Blair being lifted out of Gleneagles by a military chopper. See, if Paddy Ashdown had become Prime Minister, he'd be in camo gear, carrying a machine gun and clambering into an Apache, proclaiming that he was off to personally hunt down and kill Osama. I think the country really missed an opportunity there.

makinglight has some all-purpose tips for an apocalypse (and the comments are worth reading too: "Now what did Tom Cruise do that was a bad idea? I think I'll do the opposite.")

John Kovalic shares some thoughts: 'To quote an old Londoner who lived through the blitz and got caught up in the Canary Wharf explosion: "I've been blown up by a better class of bastard than this!" '

My preferred coping mechanism does seem to be black humour.

Happy to say that all my friends and their families seem to be OK. And not to diminish the tragedy in any way, but I'm glad it's no worse, not a disaster of 9/11 proportions. The world is so full of awful things. Every death by violence is a tragedy. This is different for me because of the media coverage, and the fact that I've been to London and know people there, but is it worse than a car bomb in Baghdad or Tel Aviv? Not to the people involved, I'm sure.

Sounds like London is coping very well, anyway.

I can't seem to summon up much in the way of anger or bloodlust -- maybe because I've been so focused on making sure the people I know are safe and well, and beyond them people I don't know, that "make the bastards pay" seems irrelevant. More than that, almost unreal; intellectually I know there were people who did this, and I hope they're caught and brought to justice, but I haven't any visceral feelings on the matter. Maybe that will change, I don't know. Anyway, it's not all about me, so I'll shut up on that front.

Comments

[raithen.livejournal.com]

{{hugs you}} and you know why, cuz you know me!

[life-on-queen.livejournal.com]

I think Warren Ellis is right, that is a missed opportunity. As for the other, I'm all for making the bastards pay. I shouldn't be and neither should our leaders or officials because vengeance leads to shitty government policy. Sometimes I wonder if I'd really go vigilante if I thought I could get away with it and if it's only the knowledge that I'm not smart enought to get away with blowing Karla's head off keeps me from driving to Montreal. I believe in good and evil, in heaven and hell and I know that we are called to be better people than we are. But sometimes I wonder if not for the threat of prison, would a be a more violent person?

These are the things I think about when I get to feel the bloodlust...