Two minute silence

[ciphergoth]

At 12:00 BST today, London and many around the world observed a two minute silence for the 48 people who died in the terrorist attacks on London on 7 July.

During those two minutes, approximately 42 children worldwide died due to poverty.

We are not going to let terrorists cause us to lose perspective.

Comments

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm not against the vigils or the silence. And I also agree that having a 100% level sense of perspective would drive you mad very quickly - I don't apologise for feeling it more strongly when they bomb my city, and kill friends of friends, than when people thousands of miles away with no connection to me die.

But when we move from expressing what we're feeling and how we're affected, to what we're going to do about it as a matter of public policy, I want it recognised that compared even to road deaths, never mind global poverty, terrorism is barely a blip on the scale of problems government should be thinking about and spending money on.

[lovelybug.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree, about poverty, if not so much road deaths.

[ajva.livejournal.com]

I would quibble the road deaths comparison too, if only because road deaths are not political per se.

But I know what you mean. :o)

[werenerd.livejournal.com]

Would disagree with you there. As a regular translator for the Swedish Roads Administration, I’ve seen a lot of evidence as to just how political an issue road deaths is. The amount of money spent on Road Improvements, Drunk Driving Awareness, Traffic Safety Monitoring, Driving License Requirements, and the penalties set for Traffic Safety Violations, has a direct and substantial impact on the number of road deaths. This is bourn out by the widely differing numbers of road deaths within the EU.

Sweden, which has some of Europe’s toughest Driving Laws, lowest Blood-Alcohol tolerance, and most difficult Driving License requirements, and which also sinks about double the amount of money per capita into Road Safety as the UK, has over a third less road deaths per capita than the UK.

Your national politicians have considerable power to influence Road Deaths.