Shortly after coming out the shower this morning our telephone rang. It was my Mother, who had heard a minimal report about the explosions at the British Consulate in New York and was understandably worried. Due to juggling aerials, TVs with European plugs, and the Playstation, we had no TV.
NPR was nattering about subcommittees for something or other, so we tuned the radio to 1010am, which turned out to be in the middle of 10 minutes of baseball coverage. Then, out of the sport section...
"Two small blasts shattered nerves and some glass this morning outside the British Consulate in New York, no one is reported injured. SO. Will the World Trade Center have to be redesigned to incorporate security concerns?"
At which point the story about the new WTC site trailed off under much shouting at the radio from me, unbelieving that anything like this could be given so little coverage. They later came around to the story again - the WTC redesign is a separate news item today, and I'll bet the presenters thought the blasts were a neat little segue - covering it in more depth, but at that point Krissa calming me down was all that was keeping me from being crushed to death under the weight of the indignantly British chip on my shoulder.
The important thing is that no-one was hurt.
Reuters covers what is known so far here, the BBC here.
All the main sources think that the blasts have something to do with the UK General Election, but what point they are attempting to make is unclear. There are a number of different organisations housed in that building, and the quite frankly surreal use of metallic fruit seems to be an odd note - it is the British Trade Consulate after all, and the cut and thrust of fruit embargoes or taxes or trade agreements isn't something I'm too well up on...nah. It can't be that. No one could be so incensed at the dropping prices of pineapples.
Anyway.
The choice of New York for the attack poses interesting questions about the aims and agenda of whoever planted the devices. If they were intended to make a point about Britain's war involvement on the day of the election, then carrying out the attacks in New York would be pointing the finger at US-UK cooperation on that front, but in addition to this setting off explosions in one of the most terrorist-wary cities in the world could be an indication that somebody, somewhere, is capable of doing more than just blowing up metal fruit.
If I were talking to you face to face now, I would be shrugging.
But again, the important thing is that no one was hurt.
The important thing is that no one was hurt.
It seems the point someone was out to prove is baseball is more important than a terrorist attack on the British, even if it is on American soil.
Adrian, that was kind of what I thought too, and it made me really angry. Until I realised that they had more than likely just finished talking about it when we tuned in, had their hourly sports round-up, and then used today's explosions as a segue into another news story of the day, before returning to the Consulate as a breaking story.
I was surprised too, but it really wasn't like you say.
I've been watching CNN and (aggghhh) Fox this lunch time and they're saying that the British consulate is based in a 25 story building and uses 2 floors. (9 & 10). At the moment there is nothing to suggest it was an attack on the Consulate at all. It could have been an attack on any of the business' or organisations based in this building.
I've actually been doing a Google cross reference on many of the organisations in the building to see if there is anyone contentious or involved in something politically hot, but so far nothing.
I'm coming to the conclusion that the fruit thing might be nothing to do with it. If I was going to try and make a hand grenade, a pineapple-shaped receptacle would strike me as ideal.
This is what got me started on the fruit thing, to quote Reuters:
"...two metal "novelty grenades," one in the shape of a pineapple, the other a lemon, both packed with gunpowder, police said."
To quote ABC News...
"Officers estimated that one was the size of a pineapple; the other the size of a lemon."
Ah, Chinese Whispers.
I bought a massive lemon once. People shouldn't size things by fruit, have they never been to a village fete and seen the huge pumpkins?
All too true, Merkio.
And you know the really annoying thing about all this? I spent Aaaaaages on yesterday's post, and now because of this no bugger'll read it.
I started reading it but gave up. It's the lack of pictures. I've never been very attentive. I'll try again soon.
Child of the Fox News Generation, you are.
Sorry.
That was a bit harsh.
ohhhhhh that's low.
It's a good job there's an ocean between us!
:)
I think it really depends on what time you tuned into the news - when I woke up this morning NPR was doing coverage of the event - their reporter had just left a press conference with Bloomberg about it. I think there's probably also a tendancy in the US news right now, perhaps especially in NY, not to create panic.
After Sept. 11 my first though upon waking up and hearing "explosion outside the British Embassy.." was OH NO!! Not again....
I would go for a watermelon myself ...
creating panic (or at least fear) is the most widespread (and powerful) political tactic used by western politicians today...
need I say more about the way the "attack" was reported this morning?
aaaanyway.. talking politics, yes it is the British General Election today and annoyingly I can't vote because I didn't have a residence to register at when the electoral role forms came round... but I have been phoning friends family etc to check they are voting the right way! : ) ie. pretty much anything that isn't Tory...
If I was voting I would vote Liberal Democrat... even though I don't want to see them in power. I would like Labour to stay in power but I would like to see the Liberal Democrats hold a few more seats in Parliament and therefore have a bigger voice...
The perfect outcome of this election for me would be if Labour won and then the Lib Dems overtook the Torys (Conservatives) to acheive the role of "the oppostion". Everybody I know thinks the same way as well.. I'm just hoping that the British public rise to the challenge of overcoming our crappy first-past-the-post, non representative election system and vote tactically.
and if they have any problems working out how to vote tactically... there is this lovely website to help them
http://tacticalvoter.net/
Vote swapping... clever idea huh? This website was blamed for two Tory seats being overthrown in 2001... lets hope it can cause a few more upsets this year..
: )
...Adrian...a watermelon sized grenade...with a fizzing fuse sticking out of the top with the word 'BOMB' written helpfully in capital letters on the side? How very gentlemanly of you to give people due warning.
Adam...yes, Tactical voting is a bit of a touchy subject. I mean Democracy should work with everyone just voting for who they want, but people don't do that because they want their vote to count as much as possible, which leads to the two party system of competition. Tactical voting is another way of trying to get your vote to count, in real terms, as more than one vote, which isn't really democratic...but I see your point.
:-)
Incidentally, did you know that ex-housemate Alex is coming to stay with us here later in the month?
Actually Stuart it is far far far more democratic to use this vote swapping method (a special form of tactical voting) due to the fact the election is run on a first-past-the-post system. If the seats in parliament were decided by Proportional Representation there would be absolutely no need for tactical voting.
With vote swapping the final outcome is slightly more proportionally representative.
Even with non vote swapping tactical voting (ie just voting for a party with similar viewpoints to your own because they have a better chance of beating the party with opposing views without a link to another voter in another constituency), it is better. Imagine 70% of a constituency wanting to vote against their current MP, but their votes being split accross several different parties. The minority who stick with the original MP end up winning... for example see
http://www.bellslegacy.com/pub21.html
Oh, okay, yes. I see your point. Even though democracy is about voting FOR someone you want...which doesn't allow for the situation you've described. Fair enough.
oh.. and no I didn't know Alex was coming to visit you.. Thats coooool!!!! : ) I haven't spoken to her in a while actually.. I oughta give her a bell...
and by the way.. The Isle of Wight is one of the marginal seats where hopefully the Lib Dems can beat the current Tory MP....
all will be revealed tonight! : )
I thought there was and had been a Lib Dem MP there for a long time! The last time I voted was in Leamington Spa, so...um...yeah.
Stuart, grenade? I was just talking about throwing the watermelon. :-)
Although painting the word bomb on it and sticking in a fuse would be amusing.
Not round here matey. Not round here.
You'd laugh. Come on ...
The news report I heard said that the NYPD were not dealing with it very sensibly - they had lots of armed police on the scene but no one's bothered to remove rubbish bins from the Metro.
Oh well, British bombs in America. Makes a change from American bombs in Britain.
Old Comment:No, that's true Gert - the Subway does still have rubbish bins, but then the sort of terrorism New York has experienced has been of a larger magnitude than the IRA bombs in mainland Britain, and, (I don't know) I imagine this sort of explosion isn't a common enough occurrence for them to start looking at taking those sorts of measures yet.
Although there is a prevention/cure argument there, the New York subway does have a very visible 'If you see something, say something' campaign with regard to unattended luggage or suspicious packages.
New comment:
Hang on.
Gert...as far as I know this is the first attack of its kind in New York - a small package bomb - what were you expecting? That this morning after hearing the news that they'd rip out every trash can in the city?
And I don't like the way that the end of your comment suggests that having a bomb targetting British in America as opposed to the Americans having air bases in the UK is a good thing. That's a bit of a twisted signoff...
At the risk of starting a flame war, I'm going to have to side with Stuart on this. I'm not sure if you're trying to point out that we're lazy or inefficient or inviting terrorism or all THREE, but for now, in New York City's terrorism history, trashcan bombs are not de rigeur, and responding to one terrorist attack with the prevention method to a completely other kind of attack seems the real inefficiency. I'd prefer that the FBI and NYPD spend their time dealing with the current problem as opposed to running around ripping trash cans out of "metro" stations.
And as for how the NYPD is or is NOT handling a small scale bombing, I'm surprised that anyone from England would suggest that hysteria-causing wide-scale shut-downs of anything - streets or trash cans - to be the correct approach for an already high-alert and very jumpy city.
Also - sorry - what American bombs in Britain? I must have missed that news item.
I think perhaps Gert was refering to IRA bombs with suspected funding from US Citizens. I don't buy that.
They were saying on CNN earlier that pipe bombs and incendry devices like this were quite common in the 70's and early 80's in New York, carried out by general nutters and IRA activists. So I'm not sure it's fair to say this was the first of it's kind. Moving bins from the subway isn't the answer though.
I'm still not convinced it was anything to do with the British Consulate though.