three minutes

[andymackem]

If you're a monk, and you've taken a vow of silence, how do you show respect on these occasions?

[zaltys7]

Wow I am now amphetamine filth,

Hasn't taken long has it


Paul

[timsinister]

Redundancy. What a beautiful thing.

What's even better is when you're at the top of the technical know-how pile, and the server is your baby.

Ker-ching!

[timsinister]

Andy - Shout your bloody head off? Break your solemn vow of silence to show how much you respect the tragedy...?

[smiscandlon]

I made a point of leaving the office at 11:55, came back at 12:10.

What fecking difference does it make?

[Brideoffrankenstein]

We were supposed to do the silence at work, but we were so busy around that time everyone forgot

[smiscandlon]

No danger of that happening at my efficient workplace. The plan was to set off the fire alarm briefly to signal the start of the silence.

[Rivers]

I did mean £3 instead of 3 mins so no pop taken Markfiend just indulge me with pistols at dawn, preferably something from the Bollocks album

[boudicca]

I've got to stick my head above the paraphet here. I really think some of this is pretty disgusting.

I'm not a big fan of organised silences. Certainly not when people appease their consciences with them, and then conveniently fail to locate their pockets. Standing still for a while isn't going to have any discernible effect on the people who've been affected in this, but is that the point? I think most people sorely need to take a bit of time out of their petty affairs in the wake of events like this to get a bit of perspective on how lucky, not to mention ungrateful, they are. It doesn't have a direct impact on the people in Asia, but it may prompt us to pull our heads out our arses as far as our general attitude to all the major problems facing the world today goes. Or at the very least stop us from f**king whining about how dreadful and stressful our modern lives are all the time.

I don't think a lot of people are actually capable of grieving all by themselves, as EmilyStrange said she is. I think many people (myself included) are totally detatched from the reality of all this - we are watching it on our screens like Casualty, after all. Perhaps true, genuine grief is impossible - humans aren't really designed to deal psychologically with these things. We wouldn't have known if there was a tsunami 1000 years ago. We only experience true, natural grief if it directly affects us. So I don't know that the public would be responding financially in the way it is unless we had been hearing about this constantly. I instincitvely loathe the idea of the public being cajoled into feeling a certain way by the media and government, but I do think the feelings that we are 'obliged' to feel at the moment are actually entirely sensible and rational, given the scale of the human tragedy, and unfortunately I can't see any other way we would react. It might not be wired into our brains through thousands of years of evolution, but now that we have the technology to be informed and aware when these things happen, I don't think we can ignore the suffering of so many other human beings.

Africa and it's various troubles are a case in point. We don't hear about them wall to wall, we don't do anything. We only react to massive news coverage. I hope the problems there don't fall off the radar (although many of them barely register with the British public as it is) - maybe the spotlight on charities at the moment will give them an opportunity to raise the profile of their other causes too.

One thing I find massively offensive about all these people already saying we're overreacting as a nation (see Newsnight?), is that we didn't get this after Sept. 11th, and after the death of Diana. Now that was pathetic. I find it strange to be saying what I'm saying because usually I'm the first to roll my eyes and say "oh, get over it!" But this disaster is massive in comparison, and I really think some people who think they're being incredibly cool and cynical are less in touch with reality than they'd like to think they are. There's nothing smart about not giving a s**t if 150,000 people are dead.

[markfiend]

I don't think it's a case of not giving a s**t. It's a case of a productive reaction to the disaster. Which standing around for 3 minutes isn't.

is that we didn't get this after Sept. 11th, and after the death of Diana

Maybe not after September 11th, not from the mainstream media, but I do remember someone (probably on Channel 4) suggesting that the reaction to Diana's death was somewhat over the top.

We only experience true, natural grief if it directly affects us.

I think this is true. I think that what the hundreds of wailing "mourners" at Diana's funeral were experiencing is more commonly known as hysteria.

I think the "natural" reaction to the tsunami disaster is not grief (for those of us who have no personal connection to the events) but compassion.

[Brideoffrankenstein]

I think that what the hundreds of wailing "mourners" at Diana's funeral were experiencing is more commonly known as hysteria.

Did you know that there were less calls made to self help lines such as the Samaritans and doctors prescribed significantly less anti-depressants around that time? They reckoned it was because all the wailing everyone was doing helped to remove some of their inner demons n'stuff

[christophe]

I think that what the hundreds of wailing "mourners" at Diana's funeral were experiencing is more commonly known as hysteria.

Did you know that there were less calls made to self help lines such as the Samaritans and doctors prescribed significantly less anti-depressants around that time? They reckoned it was because all the wailing everyone was doing helped to remove some of their inner demons n'stuff

actualy, thats quite sic

[Mrs RicheyJames]

I reckon it was because the sycophantic bitch was dead!

[Lamia]

Working in a hospital environment, if we stood still and silent for 3 minutes - a lot of our patients would die! Then we would have to have another 3 minutes silence for the ones that died during the original 3 minutes silence and then........................ I think i need to go to bed!


Donations are what's needed, not mouths clammed shut as people stand awkwardly wandering what they should actually be thinking about.

Ok, im going , im going...................