Thursday, January 13, 2005
Yeah, whatup Detroit?
This is just a quick round-up of tsunami news coverage that I've found intriguing over the past few weeks.
1) I couldn't believe this editorial by Cate Brett of the Sunday Star-Times on January 2, included this quote:
Ever tried swimming in a sizable swell or in a reasonably quick moving river?
Well its fucking hard, let alone swimming in a tsunami filled with lethal debris - cars, trees, buildings etc - which was reportedly moving at about the speed of a plane...Ian Thorpe have would be lucky to make it.
Too ignorant to be able to swim? Is the inability to swim related to ignorance, or perhaps rather the lack of oppurtunities?
Too poor to live anywhere but on the shore? Interesting, in New Zealand and many western nations living on the coast is to be aspired too its where the genuinely wealthy locate.
If you get nailed by a tsunami your luck's run out plain and simple, don't go blaming it on bank balances, or rather the lack of them.
2) This article on scoop by my old lecturer is worth reading if you haven't already. Anyone else find it telling Michael Schumacher's $10m donation to the tsunami relief aid was a third of the size of Saudi Arabia's initial pledge?
Guess those Saudi's only open their wallets when there are airline tickets to purchase huh.
Watching the World XI versus Asian XI cricket match at the MCG was truly awesome, not just for the quality of the play but even via the television you could feel the atmosphere at the game.
70,000 fans gathering to support the tsunami victims, corporations like Toyota coming to the party with $50,000 a six - and who cares if it is a calculated PR decision, Toyota's still going out of its way to help the cause.
Wonder what Ford, who had their Ford Territory advertising surrounding most of the boundary, thought?
3) On a different note - I did not need this press release on Monday when I arrived back to work having exhausting my annual leave in Auckland's shit-house weather.
Bastards.
1) I couldn't believe this editorial by Cate Brett of the Sunday Star-Times on January 2, included this quote:
As Britain's Guardian newspaper pointed out: "Many who will have died this week or in the next month or so will have died because they were too ignorant to be able to swim, too poor to be able to live anywhere but on the shore, and lived in places with facilities too basic for them to avoid the diseases that follow in disaster's wake."
Ever tried swimming in a sizable swell or in a reasonably quick moving river?
Well its fucking hard, let alone swimming in a tsunami filled with lethal debris - cars, trees, buildings etc - which was reportedly moving at about the speed of a plane...Ian Thorpe have would be lucky to make it.
Too ignorant to be able to swim? Is the inability to swim related to ignorance, or perhaps rather the lack of oppurtunities?
Too poor to live anywhere but on the shore? Interesting, in New Zealand and many western nations living on the coast is to be aspired too its where the genuinely wealthy locate.
If you get nailed by a tsunami your luck's run out plain and simple, don't go blaming it on bank balances, or rather the lack of them.
2) This article on scoop by my old lecturer is worth reading if you haven't already. Anyone else find it telling Michael Schumacher's $10m donation to the tsunami relief aid was a third of the size of Saudi Arabia's initial pledge?
Guess those Saudi's only open their wallets when there are airline tickets to purchase huh.
Watching the World XI versus Asian XI cricket match at the MCG was truly awesome, not just for the quality of the play but even via the television you could feel the atmosphere at the game.
70,000 fans gathering to support the tsunami victims, corporations like Toyota coming to the party with $50,000 a six - and who cares if it is a calculated PR decision, Toyota's still going out of its way to help the cause.
Wonder what Ford, who had their Ford Territory advertising surrounding most of the boundary, thought?
3) On a different note - I did not need this press release on Monday when I arrived back to work having exhausting my annual leave in Auckland's shit-house weather.
Don't give up on summer just yet. MetService meteorologists are forecasting an extended period of dry weather for much of the country with an anticyclone crossing central New Zealand this week.
"Holiday makers can say hi at last to summer with this high," commented MetService Weather Ambassador, Bob McDavitt.
Bastards.
Comments:
Absolutely true about the swell or quick moving river.
Been in those types of situations 3 times in my life and on each occasion swimming had absolutely nothing to do with anything.
First time was when I was caught in a harbour up north. My cousin and I were digging for shellfish in waist deep water, took one step further out and it went straight over our heads and the outgoing tide virtually swept us out the harbour mouth. Luckily as it was rounding a bend before exiting the harbour we managed to get spat out the side into shallow water.
Second time was out at Bethells when my mate and I were caught in a rip and taken out near the rocks but managed to kick and scramble our way back (helps when you're on a body board.
Third time was in a river in Switzerland (Bern?) where everybody jumps in this river and let's it carry you several hundred metres absolutely flat out before you can safely exit. You are out of control but fortunately there are no cars floating around you, large waves, and concrete walls collapsing.
And I CAN swim.
All the accounts of people dying are from being crushed against walls, swept out to see (the survivors found at sea have said there were dead bodies floating all around them), had buildings collapse on them etc etc.
Been in those types of situations 3 times in my life and on each occasion swimming had absolutely nothing to do with anything.
First time was when I was caught in a harbour up north. My cousin and I were digging for shellfish in waist deep water, took one step further out and it went straight over our heads and the outgoing tide virtually swept us out the harbour mouth. Luckily as it was rounding a bend before exiting the harbour we managed to get spat out the side into shallow water.
Second time was out at Bethells when my mate and I were caught in a rip and taken out near the rocks but managed to kick and scramble our way back (helps when you're on a body board.
Third time was in a river in Switzerland (Bern?) where everybody jumps in this river and let's it carry you several hundred metres absolutely flat out before you can safely exit. You are out of control but fortunately there are no cars floating around you, large waves, and concrete walls collapsing.
And I CAN swim.
All the accounts of people dying are from being crushed against walls, swept out to see (the survivors found at sea have said there were dead bodies floating all around them), had buildings collapse on them etc etc.
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