TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

lauantai, maaliskuu 13, 2004

3:23 AM
Posted by jodi rose

crazy week, in a crazy world. I've been sequestered in the studio working on material from field recordings, selecting musical sounding sections for composition and producing a revised version of the raw material for CD sampler. Emerged to hear about multiple bombs in Madrid, people dying, and general horror of the nightly news. Not much you can do about it from so far away, or even being there, except keep being present in your life and living every moment. It's very tragic to think of all those people going off to work in the morning and becoming random victims of this strange world terror - but even more sad if it becomes a reason for the government - in spain, but also any govt in any country - to justify increased military spending, fear and paranoia. It's interesting to see the whole country go into mourning for 3 days, and all those passionate protests and rallies on the streets, having a specific period when you can feel and express your feelings is very sensible.
I think we (in Australia) have lost touch with how to grieve and experience loss - or indeed any strong emotion, must be that english colonial history coming out - and Good old little Johnny coming out saying there is no relationship between spain's troops in iraq and the terrorist bombing in madrid - for fear that australia will be perceived as a target for the same reason. He is an insult to the intelligence of anyone with half a brain cell. The global village thing is taking on a slightly different perspective than the utopian visions of those cyber-gurus from Marshall McLuhan to the mid 90's.
Article in the 'Good weekend' magazine today about the possibility of airplanes being shot down by various extremists with access to ground to air missile launchers; keep on breeding the fear, and soon no-one will ever leave the house again.
I refuse to have anxiety about air travel, leaving in a week for Helsinki and Barcelona which is incredibly exciting. Going out into the world, experiencing different people and places is one of the things that makes life worth living for me. As the STA travel ads say: The world is still an amazing place.