Will you think twice before boarding your next flight?
I am in New York with wife and child, staying in a beautiful re-purposed seminary two short blocks from where a bomb tore apart a dumpster and injured twenty-odd people two nights ago.
It was a surreal, warm Saturday evening when it popped. Sirens wailed. Helicopters whirred overhead. People stumbled around, some in fear but most just happily weekend drunk.
My little family was cabbing home from the lower east side at the moment of detonation so did not hear. Cross-town traffic became impossible so we walked.
And surreal. I used to chase these sorts of thrills in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Ukraine etc. Nothing electrifies like chaos.
Yes, I used to chase but now the thrills have come home to roost and as I cradled my young cherub of a daughter, while walking, I realized this is her world. Terror is no longer a foreign concept. It has become normalized.
And how will it change the way she dances? Will she think twice before visiting Paris, Rome, Belgium or Minneapolis? Will she want to move to some isolated bomb shelter off the grid?
Or will she not care and be electrified herself?
How has it changed the way you dance? Surfers are one of the most mobile segments of the population, chasing swell to distant lands with neither worry nor care. Do you still book trips, board planes, leave home with a completely light heart?
Or do you look over your shoulder and slide away from the bearded man on the bench?
This morning, an unprecedented alert appeared on my phone. New York sent it out to people in the city, I assume, and it asks for help finding Ahmed Khan Rahami.
I’ve spent far too much time in the Middle East, and am bros with far too many Mohammeds, Abdullahs, Rahmans to feel that we now exist in a war between Christendom and Islam but damn it all if the narrative isn’t becoming difficult to shake.
I’ve been there also, my good man…
You’ve been Chubby Chasin’?
I feel the same way about sharks when I go surfing in WA
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Hillary Clinton ADMITS The CIA Started & Funded Al Qaeda
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
America created ISIS?
yaaaaaaaaaaaa
I don’t know about you guys, but it’s very comforting to know that a Trump administration would have stopped this inept bombing even before it took place. If only Trump chose Mark Wahlberg to be his running mate, then we would have the most wicked awesome crime fighting duo ever known to these United States in the White House.
Who would of thought that perpetual war, dragnet spying, and constant fear spread by flying death robots doesn’t tend to endear you throughout the world?
I think you meant Donny W, who stumped for Carly Fiorina. Marky’s a vocal dem. Fraternal boy band blood feud!
Ah, a Fiorina supporter and married to the chick responsible for the resurgence of measles. I’m impressed.
I was referring to the time Marky Mark said he would have stopped 9/11 had he fortuitously been on the plane (http://nymag.com/daily/inte….
Collective karma’s a bitch.
There you go…
hahaha 1000 americans get shot per week , normalization???
Americans must have enemies. If a difference with a group disappears, they find another group to be their enemy. Russians, japaneses, chineses and now muslims…
There is something unique about a bomb which seems to create an additional level of fear. Rightly so. Terrorist groups have grabbed onto that and are running with it. Why don’t we live in fear of the pycho white dude with his hunting rifle killing school children in the same way we fear the imaginary guy in the turban with a homemade bomb? I also find it interesting that the media comes off as almost disappointed when it’s not someone tied to a terrorist group. In many ways it’s our response that provokes these horrible acts
americans killed by guns in the US every year: 30k
americans killed by terrorism in the last 10 years: 30
I’m in Manhattan today and I’ve been neither blown nor blown up. Quite disappointing, actually.
More people in the West died from terrorism during the 70s and 80s.
http://qz.com/558597/charte…
Did you fear then like you do now? Why/why not?
Fear and terror = number of deaths from bombing and military action in the ME.
What are the odds of death by terror vs shark?
That’s it, I’m never surfing near Minneapolis again.
America started all of this fear that many of us harbour when traveling, keep that in mind people.
The home of the brave or the home of the travel insurance salesman?
The home of deep fried steaks and assault rifles or, How I learned to stop worrying and embrace the Middle East.
..’cept they usually don’t cover acts of terror.