Posts Tagged ‘earthquake’
“To overcome a desperate situation, make a complete turn in one sudden burst”*…
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, the BBC’s Tokyo correspondent, on the riddle of Japan…
This is the world’s third-largest economy. It’s a peaceful, prosperous country with the longest life expectancy in the world, the lowest murder rate, little political conflict, a powerful passport, and the sublime Shinkansen, the world’s best high-speed rail network.
America and Europe once feared the Japanese economic juggernaut much the same way they fear China’s growing economic might today. But the Japan the world expected never arrived. In the late 1980s, Japanese people were richer than Americans. Now they earn less than Britons.
For decades Japan has been struggling with a sluggish economy, held back by a deep resistance to change and a stubborn attachment to the past. Now, its population is both ageing and shrinking.
Japan is stuck…
His diagnosis and his prognosis: “Japan was the future but it’s stuck in the past,” @wingcommander1 in @BBCWorld.
* Japanese proverb
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As we ponder progress, we might recall that it was on this date in 2011 that three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant exploded and released radioactivity into the atmosphere a day after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.
The radiation releases forced the evacuation of 83,000 residents from towns around the plant. The meltdown caused concerns about contamination of food and water supplies, including the 2011 rice harvest, and also the health effects of radiation on workers at the plant. Scientists estimate that the accident released 18 quadrillion becquerels of caesium-137 into the Pacific Ocean, contaminating 150 square miles of the ocean floor.
“Since there is no real silence / Silence will contain all the sounds”*…
From Bartosz Ciechanowski (who brought us the remarkable interactive explainers of how mechanical watches, GPS, and so many more things work), a piece on sound…
Invisible and relentless, sound is seemingly just there, traveling through our surroundings to carry beautiful music or annoying noises. In this article I’ll explain what sound is, how it’s created and propagated…
And so he does– beautifully: “Sound,” from @BCiechanowski.
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As we listen, we might recall that on this date in 1811– in the Mississippi River Valley near New Madrid, Missouri, there was a very loud noise: the largest series of earthquakes in U.S. history began; by the time it was complete, it had raised and lowered parts of the Mississippi Valley by as much as 15 feet and changed the course of the Mississippi River. The earthquakes– measuring as high as 8.6 magnitude on the Richter scale– were felt strongly over roughly 50,000 sq. mi., and moderately across nearly 1 million sq. mi. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake, by comparison, was felt moderately over roughly 6,200 sq. mi.
Remarkably, there were no (known) fatalities.
“The Great Earthquake at New Madrid.” a nineteenth-century woodcut from Devens’ Our First Century (1877) source
“There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.”*…
Half a century ago, you could barely walk down the street in California without tripping over some kind of fringe spiritual sect or cult-like group. Pretty much every famous organization, guru, and spiritual trend of that era had ties to the Golden state – from the Maharishi to the People’s Temple, the “Moonies” to the New Age.
Now, with the exception of some Scientology buildings and the occasional Hare Krishna devotee, you almost never encounter fringe spiritual groups from that California golden age.
Some of the groups violently disbanded or their members died under horrific circumstances. Others slowly faded away, pushed out by California’s rising cost of living, or made obsolete by the fact that many of the things that made them appealing were absorbed into the mainstream: Fortune 500 CEOs now regularly attend Burning Man and crystals and Himalayan salt lamps can be purchased at Target. (The more nefarious side of fringe spiritual belief is also becoming increasingly mainstream, as seen in the rise of QAnon.)
But some of California’s fringe spiritual groups are still out there – little pockets of commune dwellers, transcendental meditators, and UFO worshippers dotted around the state…
“Cult classics: the faded glory of California’s fringe sects – in pictures,” from Jamie Lee Curtis Taete (@JLCT on Twitter; @jamieleecurtistaete on Instagram)
* Edward Abbey
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As we become one with the universe, we might recall that, according to (separate but overlapping) deductions made by geologists and religious historians, it was on this date in 33 CE that Jesus was crucified.
“Results aside, the ability to have complete faith in another human being is one of the finest qualities a person can possess”*…
Downtown San Francisco ablaze after the 1906 earthquake, from the slope of Nob Hill
Amadeo Peter Giannini was born in San Jose, California in 1870. The son of Italian immigrants had an outsized personality and unlimited faith in the American dream.
Giannini began by selling fruits and vegetables from a horse-drawn wagon. But he was made for bigger things. At age 34, he launched a small bank in the Italian neighborhood of North Beach, San Francisco. At the time, big banks lent only to large businesses, handled deposits of the wealthy, and frowned on aggressive advertising.
The novice financier knocked on doors and buttonholed people on the street. He persuaded “unbanked” immigrants that gold and silver coins were safer in vaults than under mattresses. Moreover, the money would earn interest at his “Bank of Italy.”
On the morning of April 18, 1906, a massive earthquake hit San Francisco. The ensuing fires burned down the large banks. Their superheated metal vaults could not be opened for weeks—lest the cash and paper records catch fire when oxygen rushed in.
As flames threatened his one-room bank, Giannini spirited $80,000 in coins out of town. He hid the precious metal under crates of oranges and steered his wagons past gangs of thugs and looters in the streets.
As other banks struggled to recover, Giannini made headlines by setting up a makeshift bank on a North Beach wharf. He extended loans to beleaguered residents “on a handshake” and helped revive the city.
The innovative bank welcomed small borrowers who might otherwise have to use high-cost loan sharks. Most banks at the time regarded people with modest incomes as credit risks not worth the paperwork. But experience had taught Giannini otherwise: that working class people were no less likely to pay their debts than the wealthy.
Seeking more customers, the former produce salesman returned to his old haunts—the fertile valleys of California. He “walked in rows beside farmers engaged in plowing” to explain how bank branches make credit cheaper and more reliable. Town by town, he built the first statewide branching system in the nation.
On November 1, 1930, the Bank of Italy in San Francisco changed its name to Bank of America. The bank today has the same national bank charter number as Giannini’s old bank— #13044.
When A.P. Giannini died in 1949, the former single-teller office in North Beach claimed more than 500 branches and $6 billion in assets. It was then the largest bank in the world…
How a humane response to a community tragedy launched what became the biggest bank in the world: “Bank of America: The Humble Beginnings of a Large Bank.”
* The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
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As we learn from our elders, we might recall that it was on this date in 2006 that the first news stories based on the Panama Papers were published. A cache of 11.5 million leaked documents that detailed financial and attorney–client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities, all from Panamanian law firm and corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca, the Panama Papers chronicled tax evasion, money laundering and fraud involving 12 current or former world leaders; 128 other public officials and politicians; and hundreds of celebrities, businessmen, and other wealthy individuals from over 200 countries.
An online chat between Süddeutsche Zeitung reporter Bastian Obermayer and anonymous source John Doe
“There’s no big apocalypse. Just an endless procession of little ones”*…
Humanity is facing multiple possible apocalypses, with narratives that often miss an important point: The apocalypse probably won’t be quick or final. It will be an environment, not an event or an end point for humanity. The apocalypse is more likely to bring misery than catharsis or salvation. Although worst-case scenarios theoretically make it easier to prevent dire outcomes, in the case of slow-moving apocalypses such as climate change, it’s difficult for humans to envision the scale of the problem and to imagine how we will actually experience it…
Via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jamias Cascio argues that we’d be well served to face up to the deeply dramatic– if not melodramatic– realities that we face: “The apocalypse: It’s not the end of the world.” [free access until January 1, 2020]
* Signal to Noise
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As we take care, we might we might recall that it was on this date (coincidentally, now Chicken Soup of the Soul Day) in 1952 that 9.0 Mw earthquake centered at Severo-Kurilsk in the Kamchatka Peninsula triggered a major tsunami. the majority of the Severo-Kurilsk citizens fled to the surrounding hills, where they escaped the first wave. But most of them returned to the town and were killed by the second wave. According to the authorities, out of a population of 6,000 people, 2,336 died; the survivors were evacuated to continental Russia. The settlement was then rebuilt in another location.
The tsunami caused flooding as far away as Hawaii, almost 3400 miles way. Midway Island (over 1800 miles away) was inundated with water, flooding streets and buildings. On the Hawaiian Islands the waves destroyed boats, knocked down telephone lines, destroyed piers, scoured beaches, and flooded lawns. In Honolulu Harbor a cement barge was thrown into a freighter. In Hilo Bay a small bridge connecting Coconut Island to the shore was destroyed by a wave when it lifted off its foundation and then smashed down.
Midway Island after the tsunami
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