The Pictures and The Numbers

(Click on the title of this entry for link to photo source http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4659489.stm)

My clock radio awoke at 6:30 this morning. The first story on the news was a report of six bomb blasts in central London. Instead of lying in bed for another forty-five minutes, I swung my legs over the bedside and padded out to the living room. There they were on television: The pictures and the numbers. Following terrorist events from television and the internet really boils down to pictures and numbers, doesn't it? More than eyewitness accounts or expert commentary, and certainly more than the banality of studio anchors. It's a grainy screen-capture of the street outside an evacuated tube station, a photo of a double-decker bus blown in half, and a stunned, tearful woman clutching an emergency services blanket.


And the numbers; always the numbers. As much as you soak in the images, you remember the numbers. How many dead? How many bombs? What time is it? How long have I been watching this? What time is it there? Seven blasts at four sites. Five hours ahead. Numbers of dead unknown, then two confirmed deaths, ratcheted up to forty fatalities, and later dropped to thirty-three, but sure to rise again. Three hundred injured, half of them seriously, or is it forty-five serious? I thought it was six bombs, no? Worst bombing since when? Madrid in March of '04? When were Bali and Morocco?


Then the mind wanders farther. Can I feel safe here – mere hours from New York and Boston? We have insurance – health, life, auto, homeowners - what do we have to worry about? Is my empathy from afar enough? Can I do anything but send money? The bombings are so simple to conceive - will today's rush hour in Manhattan bring more carnage?

London, Madrid, Bali, Casablanca, Tel Aviv, Nairobi, New York, Washington - What's the difference between them? Really, what is it? All of us bleed, all of us grieve, all of us watch in fear, horror, and, eventually anger. Some blame their leaders, others rally at their feet, but I just feel helpless. As if floating in an unfamiliar, unmapped river on a raft I did not make, in a direction I cannot change, clutching for dear life those I love, hoping for sunshine, fearing the rocks and rain, and praying there is no cataclysmic waterfall ahead of us.

Monitoring the events in London:

First-hand blog account of tube bombing from Pfff.

London Attacks section from the BBC.

Andrew Sullivan has a very good sampling, including references to C.S. Lewis, pubs, cricket, and many appearances of the Union Jack.

The Times steps through the looking glass a bit with this article about blogger response to today's events.

Also in The Times is an analysis that seems to be saying: "Really folks, the sky might be falling now in earnest."

Sky News has some photos that I didn't find on CNN or MSNBC.

Rudy Giuliani was in London this morning?

© 2005 by justin michael cresswell