As a New Yorker my heart goes out to the people of London. The nature of the sickening fear evoked by this kind of terrorism is this: first, every loud noise or strange behavior -- someone running, three people shouting at each other -- makes you think something else has just happened or is about to; and second, you find out your grocer's brother, or your second cousin Betty whom you always liked but don't really keep in touch with, was on that bus, and soon you're afraid everyone you speak to will touch a raw nerve in you, or you in them. For days and weeks afterwards, to paraphrase Margaret Atwood, everything is cloaked in a kind of shivering anxiety. You try to be normal but nothing is normal and you don't know why you're trying.

And am I the only one who thinks the timing here, on the heels of the huge celebratory wave of joy in London over the Olympics, is both deliberate and particularly vicious?