nick manho

manho comments on the big news of the day: #35

earth quakes? i've had a few, but then again...

remember this one?

June20, 1990, Iran: 50,000 dead

and this one?

July 27, 1976, Tangshan, China: 655,000 dead

i remember them. i'm too young to remember the really good ones, though:

January 23, 1556, Shansi, China: 830,000 dead

December 28, 1908, Messina, Italy: 100,000 dead

but as messina is half an hour away from where i live it's still a talking point. in fact it's the anniversary today. happy birthday to all those italians who were trapped under stone blocks for days and had their toes eaten off by rats (it happened to a friend of mine's grandfather).

then there were all the floods in china (god really hates those heathen yellow bastards, right?), where you'd get millions dead. and bangla desh, india, pakistan. millions every year and the story was off the front page after three days.

this one is different because you've got a lot of rich europeans down there holidaying with the poor bastards. that's why it's newsworthy. you've got tv "personalities" telling their, "personal stories of the horror". you've got the tourist industry being hit hard economically. this could stay front page for months (you'll see less and less photos of dead brown babies, though, and more and more of european victims).

this headline in la repubblica amused me:

PER MIGLIAIA DI ITALIANI SFUMA IL SOGNO DEL CAPODANNO AL SOLE

rough translation? "for thousands of italians the dream of spending new year in the sun is fading". tactful, right? not really, but at least it's honest.

and one thing (from the bbc) made me laugh out loud:

In Thailand, meanwhile, the king's grandson was swept away as he jet-skiied along the coast. His body was washed up on the shore.

here's a photo of a jet ski:



the thing people don't realise about god is that he has this really great sense of humour. you have to laugh, right? the king of thailand's grandson on his jet ski. isn't that already a weird visual idea? then this thirty meter high wave arrives, "out of the blue" (i've seen that phrase used a bit in the last couple of days), and drowns him.

you have to give it to god, right? like, if you put that scene in a jim carrey film it would be considered over the top.

anyway, as i don't believe in god, i should be saying mother nature has a great sense of humour. same thing really. i wanted to round off this little piece with a photo of mother nature from google images, and i found this on the first page:



seems about right. great tits. life goes on.