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Seems at about 5 PM CDT there was a two part strike in the heart of London - the Tower Bridge and a nearby pub district. People in the pubs were attacked by knife-wielding people. On the Tower Bridge a van veered off the road and struck some pedestrians then several people jumped out if the van and attacked people with knives. Further details will surely follow, but know that we Americans stand with our English cousins in this time of terrible tragedy.
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Not Tower Bridge
London Bridge. Multiple stabbings around Borough Market, an area I know well, a café/bar area, and a drive-into-pedestrians on London Bridge. There is also something going on at Vauxhall, further upriver.
London
The Vauxhall incident is separate. The news from Borough Market (I know the Porter very well) and London Bridge is harrowing.
Latest: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-40147014
I was due to post a chapter on Sunday but that will not now happen, given the subject matter.
Shiraz
I stand corrected
Early on, the BBC flashed a shot of the plaque for Tower Bridge. I couldn't see much of anything behind the BBC reporter so couldn't say for sure. As time goes on it only seems to get worse.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Very Sad
Oddly, the UK has in the past been most hospitable to those from the "Colonies", allowing us nearly free access to the UK. Sadly, some of those immigrants are effectively biting the hand that feeds them now. It is all that Wahhabist poison from KSA and environs. Of course it did not help Middle Eastern sentiment that the UK supported America in Iraq, and Afghanistan in their "Coalition". It is all very sad ...
It is likely that peaceful Muslims will pay the price for all this. The very nature of Middle Eastern cultures is to mind your own business and tell no one. That will bite them now. They must open themselves to supporting the Police or the consequences shall be dire.
Things are going to change
In PM May's speech this morning she addressed several of these issues. She put out the call for greater input from those communities that are by nature distrustful of the police, a problem we have here in the States also. She said that some difficult conversations will need to be had, and a hard look taken at custodial imprisonment even for what have been previously seen as minor offences.
The senior government officials I've heard interviewed (like the shadow secretary?) have impressed me no end. I only wish we had somebody like this as president, instead of the cheeto-in-chief we have now. My hat's doffed to the UK, you pick good ones when the chips are down.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
'The Smoke' is still here
On the Yahoo news page this morning is the headline "London Reels after attack!".
No it isn't. London didn't reel when the 'Blitz' started in WWII. It didn't reel when the Kaiser sent his blimps over to bomb us, it didn't reel when Napoleon massed his troops around Calais, it didn't reel when the Dutch invaded the Thames Estuary and about the only time it did reel a bit was when William the Conquerer landed at Pevensey in 1066. We got over that problem by turning the invaders into British Citizens and their descendants didn't reel in 1941. They, along with the Celts, Roman descendants, the Saxons, the Spanish, Dutch, French just got into Spitfires and Hurricans and made the Nazis reel.
People have died and that is terrible and there simply isn't any words to say to their families and friends that can comfort but we try by expressing our sorrow and hope that the words, perhaps in a day or two, may help.
But we are definately not reeling. We have immigrants and their children in the fire service, the police, the armed forces, the medical services and who hold positions of great influence in industry, commerce national government and the public services and they too are metaphorically climbing into their Spitfires and Hurricanes to help us to destroy the current terrorists who would seek to eminate Adolf Hitler and those like him.
We are not reeling. We still worship a god of our own chosing, in a manner also of our own choosing and there are some who chose to worship no gods or vote for any political party but they too would climb into a Spitfire if it was offered. We are not reeling. The West End of London didn't close it's theatres, cinemas, bars, clubs and dance halls and people still sat on the steps of Eros in Piccaddilly Circus and ate popcorn, kebabs and drank cola and the Lights didn't go out.
The only people reeling are the ones who stayed out in the pubs and clubs too long and curse the cabbies when they are told they're too drunk to travel, "Go and have a coffee and try again later! " Unless they were caught in the area around Borough Market in which case they were given a ride without question and in some cases not charged for it.
Frances Penwiddy
Frances
Headlines sell clicks
and that's what it is all about.
I couldn't sleep last night. A darned Blackbird would just not stop singing. In the end, I got up around 05:30 and went out for a ride on my Motorcycle. 100miles later and after almost getting blown away at Portland Bill (by the wind I might add), I was sitting in the sun on the Seafront in Weymouth having a 'full english' breakfast. The world around me hadn't stopped. There was no panic or 'battening down the hatches'. The deckchairs were being put out just as they would on any other day. An Asian family walked along the prommenade eating ice creams even at that early hour.
But that view of the world does not sell newspapers or advertising.
If the people who carried out the attack in London last night, think that we will bend over and take up their awful take on Islam then they are very much mistaken. As Frances said so eloquently, they won't win and for the scaremongers out there, there aren't terrorists on every street corner waiting to kill infidels.
As the protest song goes, 'We shall not be moved'.
Samantha