Sara Zelenak had so much to live for...
London Bridge terror attack victim Sara Zelenak's funeral
At her funeral on Friday, Sara’s parents Julie and Mark Wallace spoke of their daughter’s kind nature, love for rap music and affection towards her brothers Scott and Harrison.
Coast Dad's fears over missing girl caught up in London terror attack
'Love began in her heart and radiated to the whole world.'
London Bridge inquest details fatal attacks on Sara Zelenak, Kirsty Boden
Coast Dad's fears over missing girl caught up in London terror attack
Devastated friends and family have farewelled the young nanny who was tragically killed in the London Bridge terror attack with a touching memorial service before releasing white doves by her grave.
Sara Zelenak, 21, was one of two Australians killed when three terrorists ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge and stabbed people in the nearby Borough Market earlier this month.
On Friday, hundreds of mourners arrived at the Moreton Bay College campus - her former high school - for a private funeral service celebrating the young woman's life.
A picture of Ms Zelenak smiling graced the cover of the memorial service's program, along with the words:
London Bridge inquest details fatal attacks on Sara Zelenak, Kirsty Boden
There is an old Japanese proverb that basically states that if you think you are safe, you are in danger and if you think you are in danger, you are safe.
In other words, feeling safe fosters complacency and blinds people to threats while constant vigilance and low-grade anxiety about peril on the way are the best tools for keeping harm at bay...
In his book Foolproof: How Safety Can Be Dangerous and How Danger Makes Us Safe, Greg Ip explains how everything from football helmets to river levees has had the unintended consequence of fostering additional risky behaviour, creating new danger and even worse outcomes.
Terrorist attacks, like any crime, can be compared to forest fires, which Ip explores in detail in his book.
When everyone is engaged in both preventing forest fires (by putting out campfires and not throwing cigarettes out of their car windows) and reducing the size and the amount of damage caused by the fires that do occur (clearing brush and deadwood from rural properties), everyone is made safer from the increased precaution.
Public anxiety is diminished because there is a community effort being made to keep everyone safer.
When someone like Trump says it's his job to keep the public safe, what he really means is he'll keep everyone safe by suspending their civil liberties and personal freedoms, spy on them and increase his ability to act without oversight. When people fully abdicate to government their personal responsibility towards ensuring their own safety, they are just spreading the seeds of tyranny.
There is no winning the war on terror, just like there is no stopping all forest fires.
When prevention fails, as it inevitably will, the task is to stop the senseless destruction as soon as possible.
There is another old Japanese proverb that the British understand well - fall down seven times, stand up eight.
Sadly, that kind of maturity and leadership is missing in America's highest office.
The danger of feeling safe