attacks in Norway

Martha · Post by **Martha** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 1:12 pm

Dear Kari,

I'm so sorry to hear about the attacks in Norway, both the explosion in Oslo and the shooting of teenagers at a beach. One thinks of Scandinavia as so safe, but there is evil everywhere.

I hope that no-one you know was directly affected.

Love,
Martha

Gloria · Post by **Gloria** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 1:51 pm

Kari,

I thought about you and your family. I hope they were unaffected by the attacks.

I've been to the area in Oslo that had the explosion. It's hard to fathom why someone would attack Norway.

Gloria

sarkin · Post by **sarkin** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 2:35 pm

My niece lives in Oslo - she was visiting home in Sweden at the time of the attacks, and has landed here today. She walks by the building in Oslo all the time. She has just arrived and we are taking her to the municipal pool to get over the shock of the extreme temperature difference, but I will be interested to hear more from her. Her brother lives here, and as a Swede is pretty stunned that this could happen in Norway.

Clearly whatever the shooter espouses or believes, or thinks he believes, he's gravely mentally ill. What an awful tragedy.

Sara

Kari · Post by **Kari** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 3:58 pm

Thanks for your notes of concern. The majority of my family lives in Bergen - I have one sister and one niece (with family) in Drammen (1/2 hour from Oslo), and they are vacationing in St. Tropez right now, so fortunately everyone I know are safe.

This is an unspeakable tragedy, and very shocking to a nation of less than 5 million people. It goes to show that no culture or nation is exempt from the evil doing of fanatics. The fact that one of their own could commit such a horrific crime will be a very hard pill to swallow for Norway, which is known for giving out the Nobel Peace Price.

I am very grateful that our trip took place before this tragic event happened, as I'm sure it will affect the people there for a long time to come.

Love,
Kari

Polly · Post by **Polly** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 6:36 am

Yes, so very sad.

In most cases, it seems that mental instabilty is indeed the root cause, like our recent Giffords shooting. The sad thing is that these mentally ill perpetrators can be easily identified many years earlier. They don't just go off half-cocked one day and do something crazy. We need to find a better way of preventing these tragedies. Sigh.

Love,

Polly

harma · Post by **harma** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 9:39 am

In the western world we seem to be so afraid of the evil coming for the outside (read the islamitic world). But more and more the attacks are coming from the inside. One thing all these groups/people have in common, they are "extremes", extreme muslims or followers of a the extreme right political wing or extreme left (or just a lunatic with or without strange ideas)

Also it tends to be something of "this time". If I only look at the Netherlands, a politician was shot by somebody with "extreme left political ideas, a filmmaker (because of his anti islam idea's and movies) was killed by an muslim (born and raised here, besides muslim he also seemed to be mentally ill), a couple of years ago a lunatic killed on queens day about 10 people, by crashing his car into the audience and this year another lunatic killed with a gun in a mall also about 10 people. In the Netherlands before 9/11/01 nothing like this had ever happened, a politician got killed or a filmmaker got killed because of his ideas. And that mass attacks on people where 5 to 10 people are killed, that was something I only knew for TV what happened in the US. But nowadays it seems to get more common all over Europe, Germany a while go, Finland I thing already two or three times this year (all just lunatics).

And now above all Norway, this guy really beats everythings. All by him self and a bom attack and killing over 80 people. Really you wonder what on earth is going in Nothern Europe. What on earth is going on.

What amazes me the most that it took the police one and half hour before the finally stopped him on the island. Can you imagine a major crime attack is going on and it takes the police one and half hour to stop him. Must be so terrifying for all those kids there, living in fear for one and half hour.

MaggieRedwings · Post by **MaggieRedwings** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 5:11 am

Morning Kari,

So happy to hear all is well with your family. A terrible tragedy and like Polly said, if people looked and noticed so many tragedies could be avoided with people that are mentally unbalanced.

Love, Maggie