I probably don’t have much to say about the bombings in London that you probably haven’t already seen elsewhere.

The media coverage has been naturally irresponsible (on CNN
international, which I can get here: linking the bombings to the G8
meetings or the Olympic announcement without any evidence whatsoever;
repeatedly trying to elicit feelings of anger and hate from the
survivors; treating this one ratings-grabbing incident as if it’s the
only thing that happened on Earth for the last 48 hours; etc.).  The
politicians have been entirely predictable in seizing on the tragedy to
advance whatever their position was before the event.  Comments from
fellow Americans I’ve encountered have been deeply disappointing,
occasionally even calling for nothing short of genocide against entire
peoples they know little about.

All of this is pretty much what you’d expect, I guess.  It’s all bullshit as usual.  And I don’t know what I’d add. 

But I do know somebody with a more direct experience, and what he has
to say gives me a bit of hope.  Maybe it’ll do the same for you.

It’s a measure of how small this planet really is, once you start
wandering a little, that at the moment I first heard of the tragedy, I
was actually wearing a shirt with the British Transport Police logo. 
It’s a recent gift from my Aussie friend Jono, who is currently working
for the BTP in London and just two weeks ago gave me the nickel tour of
the place.

Jono and I met up that afternoon, in fact, near his office, which is about a block from where the bus was blown up.

There’s a shady little park right there.  Jono tells me that this park
contains a peace memorial of the Hiroshima bombing and a statue of
Gandhi.

These monuments are now accompanied by nearby bits of shrapnel from a civilian bus.

Goddammit.  I am so sick of irony being this brutal.

After a bunch of tied-up international phone lines and bad cell
connections, I finally got to talk with Jono tonight.  It feels like
the kind of evening you’d buy your friend a whole series of beers and
sit around just venting.

The guy has a right to vent.  Jono and his office mates were not only
the government agency most directly concerned with the tragedy, but
also physically dead damn in between all the big kabooming.

So Jono knows vastly more than I do about all this.  What follow are
his words, from an email he sent to friends around the world to let
them know he’s OK, which he has kindly allowed me to excerpt at length:

Ever been out running around late with friends, maybe during your college years, and you realize you’re not quite sure where you are, and so you dive into a brightly-lit convenience store for a few minutes, just to get your bearings?

Apparently this happens to tiny deer as well.  Footage even made the news here (although I had to crib this from an American web page).

Cute is apparently an international language…

Still loving Copenhagen, by the way, although I’ve now eaten so many pastries that I could fart pure cane sugar.

Of course, there’s a place up the street where people are paying 200 kroner a head to see that sort of thing.

Convalescing at home for a few days.  Arm looks a bit more like a human arm of late.  Not dead yet.  So this is all good.

Out in the world, there are new documents surfacing and fresh evils afoot, and I’ll get to all that in a bit if I have the energy.  But first things first: there is nothing quite like the healing power of televised rugby.

Spent the weekend semi-consciously watching piles of international sport I’ve missed in the process of having a life.  The Springboks beat Uruguay 134-3, for example, in a match that wasn’t as close as it sounds.  I was almost ashamed to enjoy it so much.  And the NZ Maori beat the touring British and Irish Lions side for the first time ever in King Carlos‘ last match in New Zealand.  (My erstwhile rugby hero has disappointingly signed to play his next three years for a relatively crap team in Northampton.  Bummer.)  I was feeling like myself again after a few hours of this.

The topper — and what seems like proof that I’ll recover — is finding a Twenty20 cricket match on the satellite.  Australia v. England.  Whee!

(Two minutes later, before I’ve even finished proofreading the entry…)

But Darren Gough has just retired Oz’s two top bowlers, Gilchrist and Hayden on consecutive balls, and then Clarke went out two balls later, so Australia’s in serious trouble here.  Oh, crap.  Now while typing this last, Andrew Symonds has just put himself out.  Four outs in five deliveries, I think.  Oh hell.

And now Gough just got another wicket.  Oz is all of 24-5.  Which is to say, toast.  Two minutes later… 28-6.  This is horrible…

I’d best stop watching before I break out in golf balls again… 31-7… aaagggh.

If my arm falls clean off or I suddenly croak from some bizarre spreading septic deal… blame the Aussie cricket team.

UPDATE: As far as I can think of, American sports have simply no equivalent burst of sudden oblivion comparable to losing 4 wickets in 5 balls.  Imagine a baseball team in the seventh inning of a tied game giving up 3 grand slams in the space of five minutes.  It simply doesn’t happen.  So Australia went from being competitive in the match to dead, just like that, and they ultimately lost by 100 runs.

Again I say: aaagggh.