Are you okay?? Heard about London explosions!!

[Ed]

What's all this passport caper? We've booked for next July, tomorrow a year away actually. I need to find all this stuff out don't I?
Should have taken them back to Paris instead.
I had a visa in my old passport from way back when I went to the States, I thought they'd done away with them now.
Bum.

Last time we went, there was a 'special arrangement' where Brits were trusted on a kind of 'lite' visa you could apply for when you got there - it was practically a rubber stamp job.  Since that twat decided to try and blow a plane up with a bomb hidden in his shoe heel, and finding out that several of the 911 hijackers had British connections, we're on the shitlist.

As far as I know, we have to apply for a full blown visa, in person, at the American Consulate in London, now.  Not too much of a problem for you, I suppose, but a major inconvenience fer a countree feller likes I iz.

Let us know what you find out?

[JoyceCarter]

http://www.usembassy.org.uk/cons_new/visa/index.html

Try that as a start, Missy.  But I wouldn't put it past them to change the regulations - when I was into all this just to do a refuelling stopover in LA last year, the airline advised me to keep on checking right up till departure, by getting in touch with the embassy directly rather than just believing the website.

[Missy]

Thanks for that. I can see this is going to be a bundle of larfs. We'll all need new passports before then too.
There'd better be some decent shops there to make this worth it. Mickey Mouse? Who's he?

[Digi]

As some know I was away during all commotion. So glad all are safe and bless those that were innocently involved.

I hate the fact that the innocent have to suffer due to the acts of just a few. ID cards take away the rights of privacy from the law-abiding citizen. The goverments will track our every move and under intense studies paid for by our tax dollars, and will find a way to mold us into some sort of idealistic fashion they see fit. How can that be call a "Free World". 

They have tried here in the states to implement the use of ID card in our schools that use a RF chip that can be read from 15 feet away. NOT GOOD. The information on the chip gave the childs name, age, and other personal info that anyone with a RF reader could  retrive this information. If you have any type of ID card you open yourself to identity theft as we've seen in credit card cases. My thoughts are how long before an RF chip is put into articles of clothing, wallets, purses, ect.. with out us knowing about it. Thats just my paranoia though. 

Thats all I got to say bout that. (my Forrest Gump impersonation)

Again gald all are safe and peace be with you.  Digi.

[Ed]

Thanks for the link, Joyce - it looks like we can still use the visa scheme that was in place before, but we have to get 'machine readable passports' in order to be eligible - does that mean biometric?  I'm not sure   I think it does though.

Digi - those RF cards sound scary.  Like you say, I think they have the potential to make things worse for us under the guise of making life better.

As for the London bombers - I can't believe they were home grown suicide bombers.  How can a person who grew up here, in outwardly normal circumstances, keen footballer, university graduate, intelligent guy - how could he do something as evil as this?  How?  It defies logic!

I can't help thinking along the lines of "this is how you repay our kindness?"  The bombers' parents were accepted into this country as immigrants - special concessions were made for them, to help them integrate themselves into the community - all government (both national and local) official forms and information booklets are printed in a dozen different languages, costing hundreds of thousands of pounds every year.  They're given handouts, grants and special treatment, shown kindness, accepted into communities, allowed the freedom to practice their religion.  And this is their way of saying thank you?  WTF?

Maybe they shouldn't be grateful, but at least they should give us the same degree of religious tolerance as they've been shown.  That's what I feel, anyway.

[Digi]

@Blunt

I feel that the people of today's society has no fear of consequences. I see this even in our young kids today.
Maybe it was wrong and inhumane to do what the states did to the Asians back in World War II but it had a great impact and the race as a whole. Fear.

The Us Army had similar problem n the Korean War as they do in Iran with suicide bombers. They would walk out of a crowd and place a bomb and walk back into the crowd to hide. The army was not allowed to fire into the crowd because of innocent people. After great losses of American soldiers,  they were finely allowed to fire. Guess what? The innocent would step away from the bombers or point them out in fear of the lives. This woud never be allowed today and am suprised we didn't see soldiers on trial for war crimes but there again, it gained some positve results. Fear.

As you say, you think one would be grateful but death is their way of life and it doesn't matter to them what part of the world it happens in and without fear. Brave?... Maybe. Stupid?... Definitely.

[Geoff_N]

It is so tricky to organise a multicultural society so that the two freedoms of civilization are optimised: the freedom to do what you want and the freedom from others who want to do what they want. We are all descended from immigrants, enriching and being enriched existing cultures. This terror is not really about controlling immigrants, the vast majority of whom appreciate their freedom from unfair persecution, and their freedom to practise the religions of their choice. The problem is with a tiny but dangerous group of fanatics who become convinced that their lives are worthless without sacrifice.

I agree that no amount of billions spent on sophisticated ID cards, e-mail logging and phone-tapping is going to stop determined bombers, even if it makes their identity easier to find in the aftermath.

Of course, we must look on these times with horror, yes, but keep a historical perspective too. Outrages by extremists have plagued societies since prehistory. In the meantime we have our short lives into which we must squeeze as much meaningful enjoyment and fulfilment. As writers of all genre, we have a role here. To analyse the horror but also to rise above it.

Geoff

[JoyceCarter]

Well said, Geoff. 

I'm the most English person you could meet, and yet, having had terrific good luck in tracing my family tree, I know that a minimum of 17 nationalities go into the making of me (impossible to be precise because of changes in frontiers down the years).  It wouldn't make a lot of sense for me to be prejudiced about people from other countries.  Everybody has just as many ancestors as I have, and it's quite likely that you all have a mixture too.  The Family of Man, and all that...  And no one branch has the monopoly on idiocy and violence.

[Ed]

Very true that outrages have plagued societies throughout the centuries - the English have a very bad record in that regard.  Back in the days of the Crusades, the English, under the (French) king of England, Richard the Lionheart, (all so-called Christians) tried to bait the Saracens into battle by taking captured muslim families outside the castle walls, and then cooking women and children alive and eating parts of them.

I don't think Salah al-Din's forces ever committed such atrocities - they were rightfully appalled, and I wonder if they saw us as demons from then onwards.

That happened nearly 900 years ago, and our record isn't much better up through the centuries.  The thing is, we're a better educated and more racially tolerant society now, and that society includes second and third, fourth, etc., generation immigrants.  This is why I can't understand how home grown terrorists can develop the idea of hitting 'back' at the west (of which they're a part) by blowing up ordinary, innocent, multiracial people.  A lot of whom probably objected to the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq as much as they did.  At least one of the dead (a beautiful woman) had an Eastern sounding name, and many more of the dead and injured were probably muslim.

My point is - these people should have KNOWN they were hitting back at the wrong people with this indescriminate act of terror.  If they wanted to make a statement, surely the people to hit would be the government or the armed forces, not that either would be right.  It would make more sense though.

[Crabb]

Thinkers never commit the act do they? It's always the dickheads that have been convinced they'll be appreciated after that actually go through with the atrocities. That goes for every activist movement I can think of. It's like, get the dogs to do the work, it doesn't go well- their fault. Goes well, our input. That seems to be the template for all sides. G8 doesn't achieve what it's meant to, the general public are to blame for not being pro-active, goes well, it's because of some has-been plus well known pop stars made the effort.

I'm a little bit fed up with being accountable and paying out for over-indulgent egos. I've got my own agenda, and that's about being able to celebrate and accept that britain has moved on from being emprirical. I look forward to the day when I can celebrate that, without seeming like I'm racist or bigoted.

[Geoff_N]

Blunt, you are beating yourself up in trying to apply western logic to the minds of fundamentalist fanatics. Of course the suicide bombers can reason that many innocents will be maimed or killed by their action. But their "logic" goes beyond to say that those "victims" will be saved in the next life. This life, to them, is a mere trivial transition. It's not that their lives are unimportant - indeed, their blood adds to the power of the act.

You cannot find this in the Koran, or in any orthodox (in the literal sense) Islamic text, but in the twisted version of it as applied by some clerics, the likes of whom have been around, as you say, for a millennium.

Geoff

[SharonBell]

What do you guys think of the "We're mot afraid!" website?  http://www.werenotafraid.com/
It's getting tons of play here. I smiled at so many of the images and it seems to have tapped into a world-wide psychic trauma. I just don't know if it's a gimmick or if there's a real piece here. Your thoughts?   

[Ed]

True, Geoff, but it still doesn't make it any easier to comprehend for me.  Islam, like most other religions, is based on the principle of peaceful coexistence.  It beggers belief how fundamentalists (of any religion) can get the message so horribly wrong. 

And why don't they ever sit down and wonder why the clerics who espouse that they go and blow themselves up haven't led by example?  If it's such a bloody good idea - why haven't they gone and blown themselves to smithereens?  Stupid people are the problem here, as in most other instances of grief and trauma.

Sharon - love the site   It gave me a tingle of 'something'.  Dunno what it was, but it was a good feeling.  Thanks for that

[JoyceCarter]

It's the ordinary people everywhere saying they're not going to agree to be cowed, isn't it? 

I'm going to London for a training seminar tomorrow, travelling in from the outskirts on the Underground.  I know I have the attacks last week in mind, and I'll be cautious and that much more aware of what and who is around me because of the memory, but I'm not afraid.  Being afraid is giving energy to a scenario that is only a 'might be', instead of living in the moment, and that is how to waste a life.

[Digi]

No2ID pledge reaches 10,000 signature goal

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/18/no2id_reaches_goal/