The way that I have dealt with this kind of worry since 9/11 is to be mentally prepared. It may not help everyone, but it definitely helps to empower me. When I am in a public place, I look for where the exits are, what I can use as a weapon, and keep my eyes open for something that seems wrong. I would be better off if I had a concealed carry permit, but knowing my luck, I’d probably leave my gun somewhere or shoot myself in the foot! Regardless, feeling like I have a plan makes me feel safer, and prepared to take action if something happens. I feel better knowing that I won’t be a helpless victim, that even if on the outside I look like a weak, middle aged woman, in my mind I am a superhero, and I will do what it takes to stop terrorism if I see it.
I’m sitting on an airplane right now (in the passenger section), and have already gotten them to call maintenance out for some unrecognizable wires shoved under a seat. The captain didn’t even know what it was, but maintenance figured it out, determined it wasn’t a bomb, and restowed it. This is a really old airplane that I’m sitting on, they probably haven’t used those for years. I’ve checked out the people sitting near me, and thought about what I could use as a weapon right here. The point is to be aware, and call attention to things that don’t look right, Be ready to attack, give your life if needed, and stop this kind of crap. If everyone possible fought back against a terrorist with a gun, they wouldn’t get very far. They count on fear to paralyze people from doing anything. This mindset seems to work for me.
There’s a huge difference, imo, regarding the impact of the terms chosen to describe terrorists depending on who’s speaking.
Average people can call them “radical Islamists” (and do, on the left and right) and it won’t matter much… unless someone has Muslim friends who take offense. But national leaders ought to choose their words more carefully to avoid creating an “us versus them” dynamic that envelops whole countries. IOW, we want Muslim countries to join with us in the effort to defeat ISIS and having our leaders taint Islam with a broad brush could make that impossible.
It’s not mindless adherence to “PC” principles and its not wearing “blinders” — a naive misunderstanding of the religious aspect of zealotry. The care taken with these words did not start with the Obama administration, but was something the Bush administration also strove to do.
I texted D1 this weekend to ask her to stay away from public places in NYC. She texted back to say she’ll be careful. I talked to her Sun, asked her what she did over the weekend. She said she went out to dinner with friends, then went bar hopping, and took subways all over NYC. I knew she wouldn’t listen to me. This is the girl who went to Colombia on vacation this summer.
Talking about “soft” targets? I shake my head at the naivete of our security systems, which seem designed to prevent something that already happened while not paying attention to some obvious risks.
Densely packed lines of people waiting to go through airport security - removing belts, shoes, emptying pockets, walking through full body scanners, x-ray carry-ons, all in a crowd while there is nothing preventing a car full of gunmen from driving up to the airport terminal. In Japan, all vehicles are stopped and searched miles from the airport.
More densely packed crowds of people struggling to get into a football stadium where they are supposedly searched before entering. (Rapelling equipment notwithstanding, you can feel a little bit safer once you make it through security) All those outside are a densely packed fully vulnerable target for a suicide bomber. This was most likely the target at the stadium in Paris, but the suicide bomber arrived late.
Following school shootings there is a push to arm teachers, and/or put armed guards in all schools, yet every morning crowds of students wait unprotected, fully exposed and vulnerable at bus-stops all over the country.
(This one has actually been addressed) After 9/11, my big paranoia/fear was the tunnels to Manhattan. In my nightmare a car full of explosives stops halfway through the tunnel and blows up. They do search trucks at the tollbooths, but I still think a car could make it through with enough explosives to do major damage.
My big paranoia is the Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center, New Years Eve in Times Square, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. Huge crowds, closed streets, cameras, celebrities. Yup. Those three events give me pause every year.
NJres, considering there was a plot against the tunnels you can’t be counted as paranoid.
For a few months after 9/11 there were Port Authority police at the tunnel entrances stopping and inspecting trucks going into Manhattan. But even then it was window dressing. A car packed with C4 can do as much damage to the tunnel. As far as being in Times Square on NYE, no way.
Driving through the Holland Tunnel, in particular, always freaked me out when I lived in Hoboken. I always imagined a wall of water coming towards me…shudder.
I could never, ever take the train through the Chunnel. I’d have to be sedated.
I work in Times Square and my office is open unless NYE falls on a weekend, therefore I will be there until around 5 pm, which is long after crowds have begun to gather. But I would have a flaming fit if any of my kids wanted to be there.
Let’s not forget that the Islamist terrorists want us to turn on other Muslims and become islamophobes. It feeds their general lust for chaos and death.
Consolation, when I first started working there was a guy with a sword who went nuts and attacked people on the SI ferry, killing one. The thought of being stuck on the ferry with an armed attacker really creeps me out.
The House of Saud has bought off many of our political leaders. The Gulf Arab states aren’t any better. Most of the jihadists come from the Gulf. The UAE was a big back of the Taliban and they have shady dealings with ISIS.
Some people (not here, but for example relatives of my relatives) are putting up things on my Facebook about how we are at war with Islam, or that it’s part of the Muslim religion to attack infidels. I don’t think these things are helpful. People get to say what their own religious beliefs are, and if over a billion Muslims say that their religion doesn’t tell them to attack infidels, and they act like they don’t think they’re supposed to be murderers, and their clerics say Islamist terrorism is un-Islamic, I think we should believe them-- they say that’s not their conception of their own religion because it isn’t their conception of their religion.
That’s why I’m uncomfortable slinging around the term “Islamic terrorists.” The Islamists believe they are acting in accordance with Islam, but they are a fringe group, and lumping them in with over a billion non-terrorist who don’t share their aims is tarring with too broad a brush. I don’t want weak or bigoted thinkers to forget who our enemy is, and who our natural allies are.
247 Lass went to England. I think he'll play. I also think Griezmann will play, as he was lucky his sister survived the concert slaughter.
The match between Belgium and Spain for tomorrow in Belgium has been canceled for safety concerns.
My husband and I each have close friends who live here but are dual French/American citizens. All are OK, but not known until early Saturday. The parents of one live in an inner suburb of Paris. They did not after their phone. Finally in desperation, he called his sister’s house in Paris, which he hadn’t before because he knew she was out of town.
To his surprise and relief, his mother answered. His call was the first they learned of all that was going on. He woke them up. They had come to stay at the daughter’s place in Paris since she was gone. They are elderly, and have eaten early and gone to bed before anything started.
One of the terrorists in the Bataclan concert hall was from a “regular” Muslim family and was radicalized in a local mosque and went to Syria. His father traveled there to try to get him to see reason and come back home.
My feeling is that you have to live your life and you cannot live your life in fear. That said, I am always aware of where I am and who is walking around me and where the exit is whenever I am in a restaurant, theater, etc. That stems from being a guest at the Copley Plaza Hotel the night of a fatal fire back in the 70’s. I am in Penn Station every day and there is security that is both visible and I am sure a good deal in plainclothes. Same when walking through Times Square. Today I did see more visible police actually on 6th avenue at the entrances to the Herald Square subway stations.
My heart breaks for the innocent lives lost and I am sure that many were young. My older daughter and her boyfriend were in Paris last month and while they did not go to any of those specific restaurants, the place they were staying was just a few blocks away. This wouldn’t deter me from going to Paris again. There are places in this world that I would not travel to.
