History

Panic Much?

By Janet  |  2011/03/28 02:30 Posted in History, Natural Disasters, Religion, Science  |  Comments (0)

I’m sure that everyone has friends who believe in apocalyptic warning signs. If not friends, then maybe family or acquaintances. The doom and gloom mentality can be quite frustrating, and I guess that its their right to believe in that sort of thing.

I was on one of those Facebook chat-group things that was set up for members of the stake’s YSA. (Stake = city/region. YSA = Young Single Adults – a group for 18-30 year olds who aren’t married in the LDS church.) One of my friends posted:

hey guys, if you aren’t aware of all the natural disasters happening one right after the other, the protests and wars in the world, or seeing all the random mass animal deaths happening in different places and with different animals, you need to be. I don’t want to be chicken little, but these things are straight out of the bible. it’s time to get yourself right with God, and pray for those in need of assistance. And get a food storage. My three cans of ravioli ain’t gonna cut it any more.

Now, I get that if you haven’t watched the news, paid attention to history and science lessons, and rely mainly on church stories, the stuff that has been going on lately might seem like the world’s gonna end soon. Who knows? It could, but I don’t think you can rely on recent events to be a predictor.

In terms of earthquakes, it does seem like there are more of them lately, but I blame the hysteria surrounding the idea of an increase on the fact that we just know about them now. A lot of people can watch news at any time that they want it, and if they aren’t watching it on television, then they can read about it online or on their phones. The fact is that there have been 9.0 earthquakes before. They are believed to have occurred in 1700 in the Cascadia subduction zone (Northern California to Vancouver, BC), 1868 in Chile (and another 8.8 in 1877 in Chile), 1960 in Chile, 1964 in Alaska, 1952 in Russia, and 2004 in Indonesia. And, in terms of intensity (for ones before modern seismograph tools were invented), extremely intense earthquakes have occurred in Turkey in 526, Iran in 1727, Catalonia in 1428, Syria in 847, Sicily in 1169, Crete in 365, & Syria in 1138. One of unknown intensity/magnitude in 893 in Armenia was strong enough to shift the location of India. Clearly, if the world didn’t end from those earthquakes, an earthquake isn’t reason enough to cause a panic.

The mass deaths of animals is not unusual. In the past 30 years, the United States Geological Survey lists at least 16 die-offs of more than 1,000 blackbirds or starlings. There have been references in bird journals of mass deaths occurring back to the late 19th century, including in 1904 when 1.5 million Lapland Longspurs died during a storm in Minnesota and Iowa. The fact that the New Years animal deaths occurred so close together is believed to be coincidence.

Protests and wars aren’t unusual. There are currently 9 conflicts that cause 1000 or more deaths a year, which includes the Mexican Drug War, Libyan conflict, and the Iraq war. It does not include the conflict Arab-Israeli conflicts, nor does it include the protests/fighting that have occured in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain. Nine conflicts plus the “War on Terror” does not mean that we have an increase in political turmoil or violence.

In the Middle Ages and Modern era (to about the Middle of the 19th century), wars were going on constantly, plus diseases, persecution, revolts and revolutions, and natural disasters. The Black Death alone was able to kill off between 30 & 60 % of the European population and reduced the world’s population from approximately 450 million to approximately 360 million.

I just don’t get why people freak about things without getting a little bit of perspective on how things are now compared to the past. Perspective can help you keep a handle on your stress levels, and it will save you a lot of money that might be spent on something like Xanax.

You Can’t Fix the Chronically Stupid

By Janet  |  2011/03/11 17:39 Posted in American Politics, Asian Politics, History, Internet, Natural Disasters  |  Comments (0)

The earthquake in Japan is a horrible thing, right?  Well, apparently, there are some ignorant assholes who think that Japan deserves this because of Pearl Harbor.  So I took a screenshot of one of the Facebook statements, and I decided to do as they said.

According to the United States Army, the casualties for the United States for Pearl Harbor were as follows:

Casualties among American service personnel were of course much higher. The Navy and Marine Corps have counted 2,117 killed or died of wounds, and 779 others wounded in action.61 The far smaller Army casualties are difficult to determine with exactitude. General Short, in his report on the battle, listed 228 Army men dead or died of wounds, 110 seriously wounded, and 358 slightly wounded, a total of 696 Army battle casualties, as of midnight, 10 December.

There were around 2300 Americans killed that day.  Now, I’m sure others will say that that is the reason that America joined World War II, and (for the most part) that is true.  However, given what was going on, America should have been in the War already, and any losses occurring after America joined WWII shouldn’t be blamed on Japan.  And those 2300 people who died from the attacks on Pearl Harbor were more that made up for with the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Hiroshima lost 90,000－166,000 persons from the acute effects.  That was from their original population of approximately 345,000.  Nagasaki lost 60,000 – 80,000 from the effects from their population of approximately 260,000.  I think that the losses of the Americans from the one day have more than been made up for, so if anyone wants to say that Japan deserves this, then they need to get off their ignorant horse and stop acting like a self-righteous asshole.

If the amount of dead wasn’t made up for, then perhaps the time that it has been since the attack should make people back the hell up off the blaming of Japanese citizens.  Most of the people who were even alive during the time of that attack are very old, and they wouldn’t have even been the people responsible.  It’s been almost 70 years.  It’s time to get over it.

Other people have said that Japan hasn’t done anything for America since then.  Japan has been a world leader in design and technology for years.  America has gotten a lot of stuff from Japan, including some of the very technology that people use to communicate on Facebook, Twitter, and other networks.  So, I think that the Japanese have contributed quite a bit to the world.

People shouldn’t continue to blame an entire people for a few historical figures who did some bad stuff.  Americans don’t want to be blamed for things that past generations do wrong, so we shouldn’t do that with other people.