How Scared Do We Need to Be?

Yesterday our travel agent sent an e-mail saying that Business Class tickets from London to San Francisco, free with frequent flyer miles, just became available for next October and did we want them? 

I'd been dreading this.  A few weeks ago, Jenny has managed to get us free tickets to London, and I knew that it was about time for the return tickets to become available.  In the meantime, ISIS had blown up a plane in the Sinai, killed 43 people with a explosives in Beirut, and massacred 129 in Paris in a multi-pronged, nightmare attack.

No time for dallying.  She needed to act right away if we wanted them.

What I really wanted to do was to agonize with Jerry, but he wasn't available by phone, and the travel agent was going out at 5 pm.   After that, the tickets almost certainly would be gone.

Keep in mind that I didn't fly for five years after 9/11.

I started traveling again in 2006, because I was tired of missing out.

I paced around the house.  I thought about an interchange I'd had with my neighbor, Laura, last weekend.  I told her that between terrorist attacks and the impact of thousands of refugees (increased security and other possible logistic hassles), we were thinking of cancelling the trip.

"Oh, no," she said.  "We have to go on with our lives."  She's a therapist, and she just got back from Africa.

That very morning,  Paul Krugman had written a column in the New York Times titled,  "Fearing Fear Itself."  He was addressing the larger issue of military retaliation, but he also said, "The point is not to minimize the horror. It is, instead, to emphasize that the biggest danger terrorism poses to our society comes not from the direct harm inflicted, but from the wrong-headed responses it can inspire."

Wrong-headed responses, even on a personal level.  If we didn't go on the trip, I'd miss seeing my English cousins for possibly the last time (due to age, finances, and hassle, our Europe-going is nearing its end).   I'd probably never make it to Spain and Scotland. 

 With my cousins at a family reunion in 2013

Just before 5 pm, I e-mailed Jenny and told her to go ahead and reserve the tickets.

Within minutes, she e-mailed a receipt and e-tickets for tickets for next October 12.

When Jerry got home, we made a pact.  If any transatlantic planes are blown up between now and September 14, when we're supposed to leave for London, we'll cancel the trip.

"What if British intelligence heads off a terrorist attack on a plane between now and when we leave?" Jerry said. "Will that count as a deal-breaker?"

 "Maybe."

"What if a plane's bombed while we're in Europe?"

"We come back by ship?" I suggested.

We agreed that we'd do that, even if it meant a week at sea, which we'd hate.

So that's where it stands with two thoughtful (?) Berkeley liberals at the moment.  Are we being prudent or paranoid?  Any number of terrorism experts have predicted attacks on transatlantic jets heading for the U.S.  But there are hundreds that fly every day.  What's the likelihood of ours being targeted?

Does logic have a chance?

Maybe.