The London Terror Attacks

This is just a brief post to let everyone know that we are all fine. No one here was affected by the bombings in London and no one was ever in any danger. It's important to note that Oxford is 70 miles west of London. It's a city that's been virtually untouched through the centuries, despite Britain's long history of civil wars, world wars, terrorist attacks, etc. Oxford is in many ways, more distant from these attacks than Joplin. There are virtually no televisions here and everyone is so busy that they are not subject to the 24-7 obsessive media coverage that the attacks are getting in the states.

Folks here are concerned, of course, and angry, but not enough to change their daily routines.

The British people are extremely calm and cool under pressure. No one is panicking here and life goes on normally. I just spoke to a gentleman in his 60's who recalled the days of the "blitz"---when London was bombed every night for years during WWII. Every morning they woke up to new destruction and every morning they set to work to defy the terror---to dig out, rebuild, carry on, and never let the other guys have the satisfaction of having truly "terrorized" you.

We had our scheduled excursion to Stratford today and it was lovely---despite the tragedy.

I'm sure there will be some very interesting entries from the students on this trip. This one will have to end here, as it's 3:00 am and I've been doing nothing for the past three hours but making calls and answering e-mails from concerned folks back home.