考えと祈り

I perused some articles towards the end of last year which predicted that was 2011 was going to be a turbulent year, mostly due to the trifecta of a compounded energy crisis, growing food shortages and the consequential unrest in the developing* world, and the full impact of the 2008 financial holocaust finally hitting the middle classes in the West – I don’t think anyone expected events to get this crazy this early, we’re not even a  quarter in and severe civil unrest is percolating in the States  (the Wisconsin battle is fascinating I think, I imagine that much the same thing will start to happen in Europe), crazy insurrections (of mostly a good sort) in northern Africa which threaten to spread to the citadels of the oppressive Middle East autocrats, and now this morning’s cataclysmic shudder.

When I was over in  Tokyo a few years ago I distinctly remember seeing in every museum and art gallery I visited some sort of display concerning how the building had been designed to resist tremors, I’m no structural engineer but the way the foundations and supporting structure are cantilevered to absorb shock waves was quite interesting. Some of the footage is awesome – I mean that in a fascinating, awe-inspiring and horrific sense of the word of course – and some of the initial reports of whole ships and trains being engulfed is just….. numbing. It could have been so much worse of course, if it wasn’t for the Japanese governments insistence of strict building codes and not letting the free market exploit a void in state regulation then we would have seen those skyscrapers in Shinjuki and Shibuya collapse like a deck of cards (shudders). I don’t really know what the point of this post is, I’m not going to make any crass Godzilla or Cthulhu jokes or anything, I just wanted to write something down. I’m not sure how this going to make Battle Los Angeles feel tomorrow, although if Ebert’s incandescently scathing review is anything to go by I might just need a sick-bag….so here’s Alan;

I’m not intending to sound flippant, I just figured we could all do with a laugh, a screeching howl into the face of the abyss, that sort of thing….

*Yeah, I thought that was a parody as well for about 30 seconds. Then I got sad.

March 11, 2011 | Categories: Current Affairs, Japan, TV | Tags: Japan, Tsunami, World Events | Leave a comment