This story is horrific: A [mother] climbed onto the roof of her burning house and tried to smash the windows of her daughters’ bedrooms in a bid to save them from the flames ravaging her home. Madonna Badger, 47, and … Continue reading →
When my son was little in the 80s and early 90s, the whole family used to love the TV show “Rescue 911.” It was one of my guilty pleasures. A reality show that featured staged reenactments of actual 911 calls … Continue reading →
…fascinating, but extremely chilling reading: what happened aboard Air France 447. And here’s an article written two years earlier by the same author, long before the black boxes for Air France 447 had been found. In it, he speculates on … Continue reading →
Hurricane Irene may be gone, but its aftermath isn’t. And although the effects were nowhere near as bad as originally predicted, for some communities they are still very bad indeed. Rivers are still rising in New Jersey. And landlocked Vermont—of … Continue reading →
No part of the US is immune to tornadoes, although the well-known “Tornado Alley” in the midwest has by far the largest number in this country and the world. But New England has some, too, and yesterday Springfield, Massachusetts—a large … Continue reading →
The devastating tornado in Joplin was especially devastating for a number of children who have been orphaned by it. The term “orphan” seems almost like an anachronism, something that was far more common in the past. And yet children are … Continue reading →
This AP article just may be the stupidest article on the Japanese earthquake and tsunami that I’ve read so far. Anyone who never realized that industrialized, organized, complex nations are most vulnerable of all to such threats simply does not … Continue reading →
We already know that being in the path of the tsunami was like a nightmare—the ocean coming swiftly to swallow you up along with everything in its path, inexorable, powerful, and deadly, and your only hope of survival to outrun … Continue reading →
We’ve been hearing the word “disaster” in connection with the nuclear reactors in Japan, usually in the context of phrases such as, “Japanese teams work mightily to avoid looming disaster.” But what is the definition of a disaster these days? … Continue reading →
I think I’m starting to sound like the proverbial broken record (although now that records are pretty much obsolete, should there not be another term?), but the beat goes on with the hyping of the nuclear plant problems in Japan. … Continue reading →
I’m not a scientist, but this article by William Tucker in the WSJ seems to make a great deal of sense and is worth quoting at length. The gist of it is that Fukushima Daiichi ain’t Chernobyl. Nor is it … Continue reading →
There’s the quake, and then there’s the aftermath. Sometimes, as in Japan today, the latter is worse than the former. Not that the former wasn’t really really bad. It was, and it lasted for over two minutes. I’ve been in … Continue reading →