"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake..."

[uberreiniger]

A day-and-a-half ago the death toll in Asia from the tsunamis was 28,000. That's the population of my hometwon wiped out nearly twiceover. By this evening it was 56,000. In the eight hours I've been at work, I've watched it leap on the Yahoo newsreports from 58,000 and 60,000.

Margaret Atwood quotes in her novel Oryx and Crake that human beings are incapably of conceiving of other human beings as individuals in groups larger than fifty. I think she may be right. While the disaster was still the size of my hometown with its very finite physical boundaries, or slightly larger, I could visualize those dead. But it escapes me now, it eludes me. I have no frame of reference for this. It is something happening on another planet, in another universe. And tens of thousands are still unaccounted for. And cholera and malaria are poised to lash out claiming tens of thousands more.

Those who believe in a vengeful god will say it is judgement. Those who believe in an omnipresent god of predestination will say it is all part of the plan and not for us to question. Those who believe God is sadistic will merely say "I told you so." I don't subscribe to most Deist beliefs, but I do believe God has better things to do than micromanage tectonic plate shifts on one tiny planet, though it is certainly in His power to do so. I'd like to think that He didn't "do" this, but is there waiting to help us clean up afterward. It's easy to shake aside notions that something like 9/11 was God's doing; that was an issue of human choice. And I believe that God allows us full freedom of choice, even if that choice is to take the life of others. He merely waits to bestow the consequences of choice, good or bad.

But something like this? Who can know, who can say? Who can know the mind of God?

There's a saying a reply I made up in answer to the age old question of why God lets bad things happen to good people. My answer is that maybe He doesn't. Maybe He puts you here to stop them.

When I get home I'm going to start looking for organizations to donate to. I'm broke, but I can't sit here and not live by my words. I have to do something.

Comments

[darkemoone.livejournal.com]

60,000 is roughly 2/3 of the population of my city, and the city in which I live isn't very big. It's interesting, reading your entry reminds me of a sentence once uttered by Iosef Stalin. "One death is a tragedy and one million deaths a statistic." It's a cruel concept, but in junction with what Margret Atwood said, it rings so true. It pains me to know that so many people died over something which happened so quickly in comparison. At the same time, I am in awe of how destructive the world can be and the scope of that desctructive potential.

I don't know. Some call it an act of God's vengeance, indifference, blah blah blah. While I'm definitely a spiritualist, in light of all the things I've learned this past semester, I call it geology. Indonesia rests on a very active fault, so such things are bound to occur. But you probably already knew that. It's such a tragedy and a waste of life that so many people were devastated, but it's hard to argue with Earth's processes. I guess we will never know what goes on in the divine worlds until we experience it for ourselves. In the meantime, we must do what we can. I think you can donate to Red Cross or their foreign counterparts.

Sometimes I think about what my area will be like after the 100 year quake finally slams San Francisco into the ocean practically and sets off the Hayward fault. The distaster which will ensure could cause me to lose a lot of people who are dear to me and live in the affected area, provided that my county does not also collapse.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Indonesia rests on a very active fault, so such things are bound to occur.

As Jesus said, the wise man builds upon the rock, the foolish man builds upon the sand. I guess there's your answer right there :/ Those countries had to known something like this could happen. Why wasn't there a preparation system in place?

[darkemoone.livejournal.com]

You'd be surprised at how unprepared so many countries are unprepared for such disasters. Logically, one would try to prepare for disasters, yeah? Ha. No. For for the most part, Indonesia is a poor country, so funding most kinds od prep and surveillance is usually not an option. Also, their government is really, really whacked right now. As far as I'm aware, I think their government knew the tsunamis were coming but didn't spread the word.

It also sucks because we still can't accurately predict earthquakes, but you would be amazed at the amount of poor civilasation planning there is in the world.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I heard that too, about someone's government's knowing and not saying anything. I can't remember if it was them or Thailand.

Poor civilization sums it up. *sigh* Maybe they'll do better this time, seeing as how they pretty much have to plan their civilization all over again...

[ksracxe.livejournal.com]

Btw, CNN reported that earthquake minutes after it happened, but neglected to inform the countries in question about the tsunamis. No warning at all from anyone, anywhere, and some of those countries would have had hours to begin evacuation procedures.

Would have been nice, though, right?

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Something was said on the news in the first day ot two that the Thai government had been made aware of the quake, but didn't spread the word because they didn't want people to leave and take their tourist dollars away. Have fun spending those tourist dollars from the bottom of the fucking ocean, you scum.

Both that story and the fact that properly-equiped signal bouys could have saved countless lives haven't been given much attention. I guess it's hard to focus on such things as who to blame when the dead bodies keep piling up by the thousands every hour.

[stitchedsutures.livejournal.com]

That's really disgusting. Money should not be so important yet it is almost always deemd more important than human lives these days. There isn't anything anyone can do when a natural disaster comes through, but I would agree with you that there should have been preparation/warning systems in place. But, hindsight is 20/20 and so now is the time to just get in there and help anyone who can be helped while they can be helped and work out all the monetary and political BS afterwards.

[skynock.livejournal.com]

80,000

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/29/asia.quake/index.html

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

It's like watching an auction in Hell...

[deathbytamarind.livejournal.com]

Doesn't it say in the Bible, God said He'd never destroy the earth with water again? He said that after the great flood.

So wouldn't that be contradictory for them to say that?

[act-3.livejournal.com]

It's funny because the massive death toll hasn't really scratched me much, at any point. I tend to think of it more as the earth itself reminding us who's really in charge. We just sit here on top of this rock, and there are periodic reminders like this one of just how fucking powerful the planet itself is.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Yep. It could kill us all in the blink of an eye if it chose. All the more reason not to piss it off...

[ksracxe.livejournal.com]

Hey this will make you happy too

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/12/29/un.quake.disease.ap/index.html

First of all, NATURAL DISASTERS HAPPEN. The earth takes care of itself. The only reason the death toll is so massive is because the population is extremely high. It would be massive no matter when it happens because of population. If the population was <1,000,000 in the whole world, then a death toll of 700 would be ridiculously high, and played off like it's the end of the world.

Stupid media.

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's the end of the world. Like I said, I don't think God micromanages every geological occurence on our little planet. Anyway, the disease threat is going to make the initial horror look like peanuts. That's why I'm donating.

ummm...

[adonijah74.livejournal.com]

It's only a matter of time before it happens to California and the Midwest. Both California & St. Louis rest on HUGE fault lines and scientists speculate that someday it will happen, it's just a matter of when.

As far as the Biblical theories on all of it, the Bible does say that the earth is the Lord's footstool (speaking to the magnitude of the Creator) and that His judgement will come. I can tell anyone here most assuredly, that this is not it. When the Creator of this universe pours out His wrath, believe me, you'll know it. In fact, it's pretty well covered in the book of Revealtion of the kind of stuff that will go down. A third of the sea and everything in it dies, and in Matthew 24:7 Jesus said, "For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places." Revelation 16:8-11 & 21, & Revealation 11:19 also cover a lot of ground.

The terrible events in Asia recently may be a sign, but this is not "IT" (the wrath of God). Anyone who is "preaching" that kind of stuff is probably just trying to profit off disaster for their own agenda.

As far as disaster relief goes, of course you could go through the Red Cross, or this http://www.imb.org/core/story.asp?storyID=2261&LanguageID=1709 seems to be a good way to contribute too.
Anyway, this is all very sad. This is the time however, when the "good guys" come out of the woodwork and really get busy helping these poor people out.

Re: ummm...

[darkemoone.livejournal.com]

Yeah, when the big quake hits in California, San Francisco will most likely liquefact and turn into a big pile of half sunken rubble. And then of course, the San Andreas will most likely set off the Hayward fault (or vice versa), and then the damage will be astoundingly high. I live in the area, so that's a very real threat to my life and the people I love.

You'd think we would've learned after 1906, eh? But nnnoooo...

Re: ummm...

[uberreiniger.livejournal.com]

Another threat to us here is the volcano underneath Yellowstone Park. Geologists say it's long overdue for an eruption and if it blew with all its force, there'd basically be a nuclear winter effect over much of the country including ourselves.

I don't think this is Helter Skelter coming down either... this is only the fourth strongest quake to hit that region in the last hundred years. You're right that when the time starts rolling around it will be unmistakeable for its sheer magnitude.

I sent my donation to the Lutheran World Relief organization. I wanted to help out a Christian group and this one looks like it's been doing pretty well over there since they already had a good first-response program in place in the region and have basically been helping out since day one. I wanted to donate to Doctors Without Borders since that's an organization I really believe in, but their website was down!