You know you want it. (http://tokyoflash.com)
The story out of London England today seems to be that Londoners are taking the bombings just the way they could be expected to - in stride. There is no collective paranoia, no incredible tightening of belts and police-state mentality on the part of the government. London's emergency plan went into effect smoothly and effectively. Of course, they've seen this kind of thing before. There are still lots of Londoners who can still remember WWII, and there is plenty of evidence of it around the city. London has been destroyed and rebuilt more than once (or twice) in its long history as one of the world's great cities. This is but a mosquito bite to the great city of London. But the attack may not have been planned to cause widespread destruction or panic. Merely to steal the headlines from the G-8 summit, perhaps. The wags on Fark.com have been having a good time with this - here's an example:
George Bush: "I don't want to talk about poverty or global warming."Dick Cheney: "I'm on it."
Others think that perhaps Al-Queda is attempting to test the mettle of Britons who are at present divided on the issue of Britain's involvement in the Americans' War on Terror™ - to call them out and remind them. But London's been there, done that, it seems. London is like the experienced older brother back from university to New York City's 15 year-old junior prom date who just got felt up for the first time and is still telling her friends about how icky it was.
Regardless of your take on it, dozens of people still died, hundreds injured and a fair amount of public property destroyed. For that, London deserves our sympathy and our support. To hear it from CNN or FOX's perspective, you'd think that the Americans were channelling the grief and worry away from England, the way they obsessively speculate and fill airtime with nonsense and 'analysis'... It was refreshing watching BBC stick to the facts.
Here's a survivor's account of being in the car behind one of the Tube cars that blew up.
UK Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell's take on the bombings.
---
There's a great interview at Buzzscope.com with Kyle Baker, the artist behind such great graphic novels as "Why I Hate Saturn" and "I Die at Midnight" - he's got a new biographic comic series coming out on Nat Turner.