Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Oklahoma City, 9/11, & the Blitz

Still watching the London Olympics and thinking of other things . . . .

St. Paul's Cathedral, August 13, 2010
When we came out of the new Globe Theatre and walked across the "Harry Potter" Millennium Bridge to catch the Tube, there were clouds all around St. Paul's and the glow of the city in the sky reminded me of the pictures I had seen of the London Blitz. It was a little historically spooky.

St. Paul's Cathedral, 1940
In recent U.S. history, we've had our own deathly terror in smoke and fire. It's easy to conclude that the strangely mustached guy behind the London Blitz was a really bad dude - the epitome of evil. And that's true for those behind 9/11 and Oklahoma City as well. But here's the thing. That guy in in Oklahoma City was a white, Christian, military veteran - the kind of guy we usually praise as a hero (mostly for the veteran part).

Could it possibly be that he was no more representative of white, Christian, American Vets than that guy who sent the bombers to London represented Germans? Or any more than those terrible ones behind 9/11 represented Arab followers of Islam?

Just thinking. . . .

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