OT: Terrorism

[Mark.Harrison@xxxxxxx]

Dear all,

I'm writing to you from holiday, in Canada, about 90 minutes drive
out of  Montreal to be exact. Didn't I pick the wrong time to come to
North America?

We're currently in this odd situation. We feel personally safe for
the next few days - we're staying with friends in a rural area.
However, we're also directly affected - we have NO IDEA whether we're
going to be able to get home on Saturday. At the moment, all the
airports in North America are shut. Furthermore, only a couple of
days ago it was Mary and I who were on an aircraft flying on a course
that meant it could have been a bomb. Worse than that, we now have to
fly back in a few days, in order to see our families again, but are
not sure how we feel about getting on a plane.

The sheer horror of what's actually happened doesn't come through on
the web, I'm afraid. We were sitting here this morning, watching the
pictures live on CNN, and seeing the first tower collapse, knowing
that there were FIFTY-THOUSAND people working in that building, and
wondering how all the survivors of the original crash could possibly
have been all evacuated.

It gets worse.

The friend we are staying with an us have a mutual friend. This
mutual friend (who I am not naming for reasons that will become
obvious) is a doctor, working in Northern Ireland. He is a
protestant. He treats both Protestants and Catholics.

On Sunday, he was called up, and told that unless he stops treating
Catholics, then he, and his wife, will be killed. He has been told,
point blank, that he is "the target of a sniper's rifle."

What kind of world do we live in?

No need to reply. Apologies for posting a long, rambling, off-topic
message here and wasting everyone's time, but I'm a bit shaken up
right now, as is Mary, and I guess that venting my feelings in
writing here means that I don't end up collapsing emotionally.

Maybe I should hit "cancel" rather than "send". Maybe I
will, I guess
I'm going to be spending the next few minutes scrolling back and
forth. If you end up reading this, then you know which...

Regards,

Mark