This has not been a good week for our friend Pollyanna and she would have a hard time finding something to be glad about. Of course, the festival of Purim is with us, but it is a bit muted this year.
Here in Israel we were struck by the cold-blooded murder of five members of one family, parents and three small children, by Palestinian terrorists, in the West Bank settlement of Ittamar. Whatever we might think of settlements in the Occupied Territories, this is a heinous crime against humanity. The killing of five members of the Fogel family - parents Udi, 37, and Ruth, 36, and three children, Yoav, Elad and Hadas, aged 10 years, four years and three months respectively – has been condemned by the entire world, including the Palestinian Authority, and I hope they cooperate in finding the culprits and that they .are found, tried and punished soon.
 |
| The victims of the Itamar settlement attack |
It is most unfortunate that this tragic event is being exploited as an excuse for violent reprisals against non-involved Palestinians and more settlement expansion and building. This is certain to drive another nail in the coffin of our hopes for peace. Indeed, we are seeing the disgusting picture of Jews carrying out a pogrom. The extremists on both sides are true colleagues to one another
EARTHQUAKE, TSUNAMI AND NUCLEAR DISASTER
On a broader scale of catastrophe we have the Sendai earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last week. It
is an event that is hard to comprehend. In addition to the "usual" loss of life and property, we have the danger of a nuclear catastrophe that can overshadow everything. Whereas the earthquake and tsunami are acts of nature, the nuclear reactors are the acts of irresponsible human beings. For a running update follow the BBC news link which is continuously updated. Let us hope that the threatening calamity at the reactors can be averted. It is galling to think that the Japanese who are normally smart people and who have had the worst experience of all humanity with nuclear weapons should have fallen for the sales line of General Electric. I would like to pass on the scathing comments of Rabbi Arthur Waskow on the forces driving the irresponsible building of nuclear reactors, deep sea drilling and the hydraulic fracturing of shale rock that endangers water sources and how they are bound together by our insatiable demands for energy and our willingness to utilize all means, viable or not, in the corporate pursuit of profit and gain. The Rabbi says it much better than I could.
PLEASE HELP OUT
Normally one might expect a strong wealthy nation such as Japan to be capable of dealing with the effects of the disasters on its own, although the Katrina hurricane showed the impotence of the United States. Indeed, they are handling things, but there are always those who slip through the cracks of the system. I chose, therefore to donate to Oxfam which is helping mothers with infants and people who are not Japanese speakers. I call on you to help out help out with a donation at this site.
As an example of how Japan is coping, I am posting a report from my colleague Nick Schneider who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He is a professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder and was in Sendai for a scientific conference. His report is worth reading. (I hope the document opens for you properly),
The geophysical aspects of the event are of interest as well. Major earthquakes in the past, such as those in Chile in 1960 and Alaska in 1964 have provided knowledge of the oscillation spectrum of the Earth. The physics of the event is well summarized by Live Science.
 |
| The epicenter of the March 11 earthquake occurred near the east coast of Honshu, Japan. CREDIT: USGS |
The magnitude of 9.0 was not measured on the obsolete Richter scale, which refers to the response of a certain instrument, but on the Magnitude Moment Scale (MMS) which is related directly to the physical characteristics of the event such as the energy released, the displacement etc. For medium quakes, the scales nearly coincide, but the Richter scale breaks down for superquakes. For this event, the energy released was about 10**22 J or something like a billion Hiroshima-type bombs. Japan was moved 2.4 meters to the east and the day was shortened by 1.26 microseconds. Indeed an indication of how puny we humans are. The New Zealand quake of 8.8 is another example of what can happen if you live on the Pacific Ring of Fire.
Before leaving this topic, I want to rant ferociously at the capability of subhuman creatures that masquerade as people and broadcast on Fox News actually to make fun of such a catastrophe, Normal people with any sense of compassion and human decency would never descend to the level of Ross Limbaugh who mocked the victims and said that it must be a punishment for environmentalism. Maybe I should not be surprised by such a phenomenon in a country where the population has become divorced from reality by a mass media complex and where there was a struggle to extend basic health services to 32 million people. News has become entertainment. When CNN covered the Mumbai massacre of November 26, 2008, they included background music in the reportage! I append an article on this topic entitled Why the Jokes about Japan's Tragedy by Phil Rockstroh and I recommend that you all read it carefully. When people go to Fox for information it means that they are escaping from the real world. Andy Borowitz and I know what they are getting and it would be funny if it were not so sad to see a great nation in decline.
LIBYA
I am glad to see that the great international community has quit dithering and has finally started to take action to prevent a genocide of the Libyan nation by their own leadership. I have no intention of providing a blow-by-blow description, but can refer you to the BBC site which is updated continuously
 |
| US and UK cruise missiles hit more than 20 Libyan air defence targets, Pentagon officials said |
I wish to discuss a different issue, namely the abstention of five Security Council members, in particular Germany. The fact that the nation that carried out the greatest human rights violation in recent history could turn its eyes away from the Libyan people should not have come as a surprise. In 2005 I participated as Chair of Amnesty International/Israel in the Chairs' Forum that took place in Haarlem, Netherlands. The discussion dealt with the question of the position of the movement towards armed intervention to prevent grievous human rights violations. The options that were up for discussion were:
- To do nothing
- To approve action if ordered by the UN Security Council
- In case of Security Council paralysis brought about by veto, to approve action by regional organizations such as the Organization of African Unity that was to intervene in Darfour in the wake of the Chinese veto at the UN.
I will skip the usual humorous ending of the blog, but Pollyanna would like to pass on a few science tidbits for you.
A beautiful mathematical theory of how the world functions at the quantum particle level, SUPERSYMMETRY , has run afoul of data from the Large Hadron Reactor.
The monster machine is not coming up with the superparticles predicted by the theory and it may well be back to the drawing board for theoretical physics. Some people have devoted their careers to this theory and other bright young things will have to come along and develop something new. In the meantime,
Finally, some snippets of news from the world of life sciences.
Hi Arkee,
ReplyDeleteIndeed a sad week. I was able to donate for vitims of the Japanese earthquake through the Japanese Society in the university. It was very moving to hear their stories from families and friends in Japan.
Lots of love, Yael