Thoughts on the London bombings

A few random thoughts about the horrific bombings in London. First, I'm just terribly saddened at the meaningless deaths of and injuries to innocents. Second, as I was driving along, listening to the radio stories and feeling this despair about this massacre, I also was thinking about (a) my daughter's piano lesson, (b) a work project I have to do, (c) a new building going up in my neighborhood, etc. In other words, my life was going on and, as I looked into the cars around me, everyone else was also getting on with his or her life. For a moment, that thought made me feel guilty -- shouldn't life stop in the face of such tragedy? No. Given the viciousness and randomness of these terrorist attacks, our strength is to go on and not to stop. Their goal is to destroy Western Civilization from the inside out, and one of the ways each of us can prevent that goal is just to keep on going, doing, living. Third, I hope desperately that the British, who showed during the 1940s more grace under pressure than any other modern civilization, can find their stiff upper lips buried somewhere in their WWII trunks. If the British collapse in the face of terrorism, as the Spanish did, these bomb blasts will have been the coup de grace struck against European Civilization as we know it. So far, Tony Blair is making the right noises, but I have my doubts about modern Europe's ability to stand tall in the face of attack. Or even better, to attack back. Fourth, I was listening to Barbara Boxer, promoting her agenda on NPR, and a few of the things she said made sense. Discounting her knee jerk attack on the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, she also said that Congress has done little to nothing to increase security in transportation, water systems, energy plants, etc. If one accepts, as I do, that the terrorists aim to destroy us from the inside out, shouldn't we assume that, eventually, they'll attack some pivotal aspect of our infrastructure? And knowing that, shouldn't we act preemptively so as to lessen or negate the possibility of such attacks?