London Bombings

There have been more London Bombings. Sigh. This is awful and my heart goes out to the Brits who have been spot on by being brave and continuing to use the public transport. It does however remind me of an cultural difference I encountered when I was studying for a term at St John's.

The colleges at Oxford are generally surrounded by high walls. St. John's, being quite old, was surrounded by a high wall impregnated with shards of glass.

There was a massive front door set with a smaller door. Generally, unless one was entering the side gate with one's key, which was monitored by cameras, one entered this door within a door. This was back in 1993, when Americans didn't have much collegiate security (or at least my college at home didn't.) When I arrived at St. John's I was kind of stunned by the guards learning who I was, when I went out, when I came home. (Mom and Dad were frankly quite pleased by this.) I was more stunned by the sign right at the front entrance- one side was chalk for messages and the other was printed, permanently, with the statement, "Bomb Threat Today." It was, more often than not during my term there, turned to the Bomb Threat side.

This horrified me! I mean, sure, there had been "bomb threats" in High school-- phoned in by morons who wanted to miss a test...But I never seriously considered a bomb would actually go off. I mean, these kids were so dumb they usually phoned from home.

So I bring this up with my friend, who is now law partner in major UK law firm- we'll call him BL for Brit Lawyer, and BL is totally non-plussed by the bomb threats-- he says they are nothing compared to the gun violence in America. This gives me pause, because I also never considered I would be shot at home and lord knows most people here are armed; well armed. I pointed out the one thing that differentiated the gun violence to me-- guns were generally aimed at specific people and by avoiding certain places and behaviors one could be reasonably safe. You know-- don't wear a Rolex down a dark street drunk at 3 AM. Don't ride through east St. Louis at 3 am with a rebel flag waving from your car.... Sure, random violence could occur, but much of the danger could be managed by behaving prudently.

I could not, however, avoid my entire college. Nor could I avoid the general shops- some animal rights people blew up a leather goods shop while I was there- in the middle of the day. I could not get a grasp on how to best manage the risk- aside from giving in to the "terrorists." (I'm going to have to agree with those who say we're overusing the word-- I use it here to refer to those who desire to control the behavior of others through fear- not in the politically imbued axis of evil way.) Which I was not willing to do on principle.

I finally just pretended it didn't exist, and kept my eye out for unattended bags. But it was fascinating to me that BL was far more worried about being shot in America than about being bombed in Oxford, while I was far more worried about being bombed in Oxford than shot at home.


More on Alaska tomorrow.