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This picture is a treasury of symbolism and metaphor. Helpless on its side, with an enormous hole torn in its hull, this disaster has already killed more than a dozen people who only wanted to have fun for a few days, ruined the career of the captain and possibly headed him for time in the [...]
Archive for the ‘Disasters’ Category
November 3rd, 2011
…tens of thousands of children have died from the ongoing drought, and in fact, even though conditions have gotten worse, most of the international media has moved on to other things. One who has not is the New York Times’ Jeffrey Gettleman, whose report two days ago from the ground was horrifying. And westerners appear to [...]
March 23rd, 2011
Category: Affordable Care Act, Disasters
One Dude threw on scuba gear and jumped into a tsunami. The other covered health reform. Both deserve a look.
March 13th, 2011
Category: Disasters
The completeness of the destruction wrought by a tsunami beggars words. These pictures are almost beyond belief, but there they are, in some ways more amazing than the videos of cars and houses washing down the street.
February 7th, 2011
Category: Arts and Cultural Policy, Disasters
but it’s taken a hit: this is SO SAD especially as the sprinklers didn’t work and apparently have been out of service for two years. Portela is one of three samba schools whose costumes and floats were destroyed in this fire, and only a month before Carnaval. Here’s Paulinho da Viola, Portela alum and immortal [...]
August 24th, 2010
Category: Disasters, Science and its methods
550 million eggs recalled for possible [sic] salmonella contamination will be destroyed. 150 [fixed 24/VII/10] million Pakistanis are sitting under tarpaulins in the mud with no food. Eggs are halal. Irradiation, FDA approved since 2000, would make them perfectly safe to eat and storable without refrigeration. Just sayin’…
January 19th, 2010
I’m not sure what Andy is disagreeing with me about; while the good news from Chiaromonte is nice to hear, it isn’t overwhelming (60% of families with cars and telephones, in the early 90s?). But the important thing is that the crushing poverty, stasis, and fatalism that bound the community until so recently was only [...]