One of my favorite online comics is Joy Of Tech, which is apparently written by, and for geeks. Usually they’re just plain silly but this one is quite meaningful. Two aliens are orbiting the Earth and one says:
“So explain this species to me again?” and the other answers;
“They spend most of their time fighting and creating disasters, yet when there’s a natural disaster, they help each other.”
The caption is: “So are we half-evolved or half-extinct?”
Make that “visible natural disasters.” The tsunami is rated something like number 7 among natural disasters, but if you figure the body-count from preventable diseases like AIDS and Malaria, the big wave is a piker.
The tsunami has the marketing advantage of being visibly no one’s fault. This is as “act of god” as it gets, folks. So we can all gather ‘round and check our charitable giving on the international scoreboard.
As for the body count of our various wars? Well, we’re too patriotic to question that.
Something else to ponder: I saw a Newsweek headline at the store, “After the Flood.” It sounded biblical, and set me to thinking. The Noah’s ark flood story has too many holes in it to stay afloat, but obviously the collective human memory does reflect one or more catastrophic floods. People like to farm on fertile, flat land, which is usually a flood plain. Add tsunamis and you get legend-generating events. Hmm…