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Well, I’m not really afraid ...

Sorry, bad and misleading choice of expression  :(
I meant "fear not, your comments about white vans require no further explanation, because the topic is hot on the international news"; not "fear not, you probably won’t get shot".

Grant

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Sorry, bad and misleading choice of expression  :(

[Grant opens his mouth and inserts his foot]


. . . not "fear not, you probably won’t get shot".

Grant

Uh, gee, thanks, I think!   ;D

[Grant opens his mouth and removes his foot]

I understood what you meant, but felt I’d better expand on my own feelings versus those of others.

The sniper better hope that the police catch him before the public does.  The police will be much kinder to him.  If I caught him, the first thing I’d do after I broke all his fingers is return his rifle to him in suppository form, stock first.

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Uh, gee, thanks, I think!

Sigh. Foot-ingestion is in the eye of the beholder, apparently.
The "fear not, you probably won’t get shot" option was only a reject because, as tamisaac has already pointed out, people are either afraid or not afraid in these circumstances, and there’s damall that encouragement from the sidelines can do about that.

Grant

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Yet I hardly think I’m morbid to feel uncomfortable when intentionally heading toward a city which has been targeted for destruction by insane people.

Not at all. I remember being on a very quiet (and very empty) commuter flight to London, the day after one of the IRA bombings. And I remember walking across charred tarmac and broken glass to get into Lusaka airport in Zambia, where they still hadn’t cleared up from the previous day’s bombing.
I had an appointment in Victoria Falls, and I was b*****ed if I was going to cancel, despite the fact my resting heart rate was around 180 for the three hours I spent in the airport (sitting on the floor with my back to a pillar, which I was keeping between me and the remaining window glass).
The risks are really very small (and boy didn’t I use that as a mantra in Lusaka), and I really do believe that terrorism can only win if we give in and change our lives to accommodate it.

(Sorry, I don’t mean to lecture or harangue you. But what was intended as a supportive and encouraging comment from me seems, perhaps, to have been misconstrued, and I wanted to make clear where I was coming from.)

Grant

Thanks for your kind words.  I have gone to Manhattan, picked out my delicious shearling coat, and have returned home safely.  As with any risk, the discomfort is there; I calculate the likeliness of injury and then be on my way with cheer in heart. I returned home fine as expected.  (With an extra free jacket too!)

What hurts is not the actual bodily harm- I’ve fortunately endured none- but the pain of having to consider the terrorism as a risk.  It is a reality, after all.

Any insights about dealing with that?

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… my delicious shearling coat ...

Thanks for that word, by the way. First time I’d seen it.

Grant

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What hurts is not the actual bodily harm- I’ve fortunately endured none- but the pain of having to consider the terrorism as a risk.  It is a reality, after all.
Any insights about dealing with that?

I haven’t (mercifully) enough experience to have insight. Friends who have lived and worked in areas of high threat - Northern Ireland, Israel and the random violence of Zambia 15 years ago, seem to describe nothing more than becoming accustomed - of finally having the situation assimilated into their psyche. I think it would probably be better not to have to reach that stage ...

But perhaps others in the Agora are much better qualified than I am to make comment.

Grant

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. . . perhaps others in the Agora are much better qualified than I am to make comment.

Thanks for the call, Grant.

Living in Tel Aviv, I see very little more than what other Agorans see on their televisions. I see no army, no violence, no destruction, no pained faces. I eat, sleep, work and enjoy leisure hours at home or out. I go to restaurants, to the supermarket, to the filling station. I visit friends, shop, read, talk on the telephone and post on the Agora. Other than occasionally voicing a general malaise about the situation among friends, my life has changed not a wit since the intifida began two years ago.

That said, there are certain things I don’t do.

I own a flat in a small condominium building, and last year the owners agreed to spruce up the stairwell. But out of fear they refused to have an Arab contractor do the work. (The job eventually went to a Romanian whose work visa had expired but who had elected to stay on and make some more money before heading back to Bucharest.)

I keep away from the center of Jerusalem, because it’s been the focus of a number of attacks. But so does everyone else, so meeting there for a cup of coffee is a non-starter anyway.

Several years ago, I visited an ancient monastery in a magnificent valley just outside Bethlehem. I’ve also visited Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Aqaba, Jordan’s Red Sea port city. Not today. Hebron has been on my visit list for years, but I don’t intend to head there anytime soon.

Do I keep an eye out for suspicious objects? Always have. Ditto for suspicious-looking people. Can terror strike anytime or anywhere? Yes. Is there anything I can do about it? No. What are the odds of me being directly involved in a terror incident? Almost none. So why should my life change in any way?

Even the likelihood of a U.S.-led war on Iraq doesn’t change the equation much. I have an army-issued mask and accompanying atropine self-injector. I’ve made a note to stock up on bottled water. I’ve seen to it that the building’s ground-floor shelter is clean and in good repair. I’ve read up on how Israel might be affected by such a war. And again, without doing a formal calculation, I have reckoned the odds of a Scud missile landing on my head are little greater than those of a meteorite landing on the head. So because there’s very little I can do to change whatever might happen, my life hasn’t changed either.

If there is one way that life really is different here, it’s that almost everybody knows somebody, however distantly, who’s been killed in army service or in a terror attack. And that includes me.

So, perhaps getting accustomed is indeed the most appropriate expression.

I haven’t been threatened by other humans, but in Ghana we were always on the lookout for snakes and scorpions. In my experience, you get so accustomed to looking out for danger, that it becomes a habit you don’t notice.

For quite a while after I returned to the States, I found myself unconsciously watching my step and surroundings closely. Then I’d catch myself and think, WHAT are you doing. There aren’t any snakes here! I suddenly became aware of something that I had been doing all along without really noticing. It was a habit I took on as a safety measure, but did not feel continuously threatened.

Ilka

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What are the odds of me being directly involved in a terror incident? Almost none.

Do you know statistics on that one?  

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and there’s damall that encouragement from the sidelines can do about that.

Damall?

Australia in the past few days has had a brutal reminder that they (we) are not exempt from the acts of terrorists.

The Sari Club in Kuta, Bali was an extremely popular venue for Australians on holiday, and two bombs placed on the street immediately outside exploded within minutes of each other, killing 183 people (so far :-[).

Australian news services report that 20 Australians have been confirmed dead and identified, but a further 116 are unaccounted for, presumed dead.

113 other Australians are injured.

Having been to the Sari Club myself several times, and knowing how congested it gets, I can vividly imagine the aftermath.

We in Australia have been, I believe, complacent in the conviction that we are somehow as removed from the possibility of terrorist activity affecting our daily lives as we are removed geographically from those regions most at risk.

Not anymore.

:’(

J.

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Do you know statistics on that one?

Words are my forte, not numbers, so I can’t do those sorts of calculations.

But it would seem that since in Israel there are more people killed every year in traffic incidents than in terror incidents, the odds of being caught up in the latter are lower than in the former. That’s a crude approach, but one I’m content with.

If anyone knows how to compute the odds, I’ll try to pull up the raw numbers.

Australian news services report that 20 Australians have been confirmed dead and identified, but a further 116 are unaccounted for, presumed dead.

113 other Australians are injured.

A number of the dead and injured are New Zealanders.

We in Australia have been, I believe, complacent in the conviction that we are somehow as removed from the possibility of terrorist activity affecting our daily lives as we are removed geographically from those regions most at risk.

In New Zealand we are probably too complacent, also.  However, we have suffered terroist attacks.  (You probably won’t find a single New Zealander that trusts the French.)  Yet it does not happen here with such ferocity and frequency as it happens elsewhere; I hope it never will.  But that does not mean New Zealanders do not fear; but mainly we fear for the rest of the world, for it seems that crazy people who know only how to hate have, for the time being, the upper hand.

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A number of the dead and injured are New Zealanders.

Forgive me Linnet - for there are Scottish casualties also, not to mention many other nationalities.  I only had Australian numbers at hand and that is why I stressed that Australian news reports were the source of my information.

It wasn’t my intention to sound so parochial, my apologies.

J.