The earth is angry again

On March 10 Japan was shaken by one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded. The epicentre was just off the east coast of Honshu, the main island, so it was followed closely by a horrendous tsunami, 10-12 meters high when it hit the coast too soon after the tectonic plates shifted for there to be adequate warning. Our televisions have shown many dramatic pictures of both the earthquake and the tsunami. The metaphor that instantly comes to mind is of an angry earth, angry at the excesses and stupidity of humans, shaking itself as if to shake us humans off the surface, and a great wall of water washing clean the detritus of our presence. I've tried in vain to contact Sawako Takikawa and her family in Morioka; I did make email contact with her brother Masashi Tsunoda who was in New York and replied to my email with the news that he had so far been unable to get through to her on the telephone; later in the day I heard on the news that the entire northern half of Honshu is cut off by ruptures of the electric grid and toppling over of most of the cell phone towers. So I'll just have to wait patiently like everybody else, hoping that all members of that lovely family are safe and unharmed.