Thursday, July 07, 2005

London

Can you imagine being trapped underground after a bomb blast, wondering if you'll make it out or if you'll just suffocate?

I'm a little uneasy myself in underground tunnels. Maybe it's a by-product from my years of driving through the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, where I never really felt quite right until I could see the sky again.

I cribbed this from BBC News. If you're wondering at all what it must have been like to be on one of those trains, they have a series of interesting articles on their site today.

It was about three minutes after we left King's Cross, when there was a massive bang and there was smoke and glass everywhere - I was standing near a window, and I've still got some in my hair.

The lights went out, and with the smoke, we couldn't breathe, and we sort of cushioned each other during the impact because the compartment was so full.

It felt like a dream, it was surreal.

It was just horrendous, it was like a disaster movie, you can't imagine being somewhere like that, you just want to get out. I kept closing my eyes and thinking of outside.

It was frightening because all the lights had gone out and we didn't hear anything from the driver, so we wondered how he was.

Overall I feel lucky, and my thoughts go out to the families of anyone who has died.

This is one of those days when I envy the people who are so sure that going after Iraq was the right thing to do. It must be nice to have that certainty, to never wonder if what we've done is make things worse instead of better. I just know that if we're being told we're only safe once the world is made over in our own flag-waving, ribbon-on-the-back-of-the-minivan, 'democratic' image, there's a long, hard, unpopular slog ahead--one that I have a sneaking suspicion isn't all that more moral than leaving everyone to their own devices is.

I had intended to largely leave politics out of the blog, but for cripes' sake. People are getting blown up. And not just in London. Betcha it's not very peaceful over near the Gaza Strip today or any other day, either.

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