An Oakland native's perspective

I'm beginning to feel troubled about the London riots, not because of the location or even the victims.

There're some unofficial reports beginning to emerge that the riots are racially driven. On hearing that, I looked again at the BBC articles on the subject and none of them address the causes of the rapid escalation of violence. All of them talk about police measures to counter the riots and punishments in store, none of them about why a fruitless search during a peaceful demonstration would lead to so much anger. But the article in Time mentions "In the past five years, the number of black and South Asian people stopped and searched by the police in the country has nearly doubled to 310,000." And most of those searches have been fruitless too.

Hey Britains. If it's true that such concerns aren't being addressed by your prime minister and tax-funded media, there is reason for concern. You may be in more trouble than you know.

Positively prescient

An article published ten days ago in the Guardian correctly predicted the current violence - even referencing Tottenham.

So clearly someone in the British media understood, even if the Beeb still doesn't.

Today.

Today began with my father forgetting he had asked me to be ready to help him out at 10 today. It continued with research into the England riots. That was simultaneous with surprising popularity as I got calls from six different people, mostly resulting in full conversations. (I normally don't get more than one or two calls a day, and they often double up on people.)

Finally, a man sat next to me and said, "Okay, this is a pickup line: What do you know about Nooks?" It turned out (thank goodness) NOT to be a pickup line, and I successfully taught him how to hook up to a wifi network. And then helped another guy do the same with his phone.

All in all, a somewhat satisfying day, if at times surreal.