Living with fear

I should mention something about the bombs. Last week, two car bombs were found in London, and a third at the Glasgow airport. All three were mercifully ineffective, though obviously they would have been more effective had they actually worked as intended. The phrase 'dodged a bullet' has some applicability here - next time we may not be so fortunate.

I'd like to be able to say that the threats aren't real, or that these incidents aren't cause for concern. They are real, and they are cause for concern. This is the decade of global terrorism, though some might rightly argue that this is simply the decade in which the United States America awoke to what has been going on for years.

Either way, let's not get our perspectives too far off. Are we entirely safe? No. But who is? Life is inherently unsafe. Random, intentional acts, while spectacular, are not especially prevalent outside certain parts of the world. We face danger every day from far more prevalent and mundane sources - train derailments, storms, drunk drivers, cholesterol. But these are somehow more abstract, less real, than bombings. No American has ever asked me whether I'm frightened by the increase in gun-related deaths in the UK. That's because few Americans know that there IS an increase in gun-related deaths in the UK. This isn't their fault, the story loses its newsworthiness once you get off the island.

So yes, bombings are real, they are alarming, and they are massively tragic when they succeed. But they are also infrequent and of limited impact. So for now, at least, I prefer to live with the fear, not in it.