Blast from the Past

This morning at 3:35 a.m. ET (8:35 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time), two "novelty" grenades packed with explosive powder blew up outside the 14-story building in midtown Manhattan that houses the British consulate, ripping a one-foot chunk of concrete from the planter where the explosives had been buried in dirt and shattering a plate of glass from the front door. No one was injured or killed. Had this happened four years ago, the detonation of two toy grenades in the pre-dawn hours might have been dismissed as the work of teenage pranksters. But post-9/11, the taped off area was soon swarming with FBI agents and firefighters, as well as members of the NYPD's bomb squad, counter-terrorism bureau and intelligence divisions.
The placement and timing of the blasts--in a planter in front of the British consulate offices shortly after polls opened in England--made the incident more suspicious. Nonetheless, I doubt that an errant explosion hundreds of miles away will affect the outcome of England's national election. Tony Blair is widely expected to win a historic third term as prime minister, despite dissatisfaction with his decision to support an invasion of Iraq.
I'd imagine that the explosions are the work of a British expat, or maybe just an American anti-war protester, who figured an early morning explosion would help him (or her) avoid injuries--and probably detection--but garner headlines in the U.S. and the U.K. just after polls opened.
But I admit when I first saw the headlines, I thought: "Not again." And even when I learned that the explosion had happened in the dead of night with no one around, I wondered, "Is it a practice run?" I don't think there is a single person in New York who doesn't believe the terrorists will try again. We just try to push it to the back of our minds and go about our daily lives, hoping that when the next attack occurs here, we will be lucky--again.