mayamaia | Nosing through the news

For a couple of my friends with this and other auto-immune disorders: Parasite key cause of Chrohn's

I've been perusing the news for an hour or so. There are some nice things in there, and some not.

One piece about Taiwanese workers writing to Steve Jobs to ask for help in dealing with their company kind of made me smile... because even though it stems from a troublesome workers' rights issue, they knew that in this world today they could reach over their boss's head to his big client and had a good chance to be heard not just by him but by the rest of us. Efficient communication changes so very much, especially in terms of what people think they can do for themselves.

As for the New Zealand quake, it kind of startled me. It was very shallow, and that's the only reason that fits in my mind for the amount of damage it did... it was only a magnitude 6.3 quake. New Zealand is on the ring of fire, I expect they have decent building codes (though honestly, I have no clue). Apparently it struck only 3 miles deep and directly under the city of Christchurch. It creeps me out, because the one that struck Eureka, CA two days before the Haiti quake was a 6.5 - meaning it one and a half times as large - but was luckily 13 miles deep. (I'd include "and out to sea", but that actually can increase the danger through tsunami...) I generally assume that the building codes we implemented after Loma Prieta (and Northridge) will guard us from anything less than a 7 magnitude, but...yeah. Still, I understand the way statistics work around earthquakes, and can handle a danger that strikes both randomly and rarely. I could never feel comfortable in Florida during hurricane season or elsewhere when tornadoes could show up. We fear the things with which we are unfamiliar.