Beautiful Catastrophe, Sublime Horror

Shake, Rattle & Roll:

An earthquake measuring a preliminary magnitude of 8.2 struck off the coast of Indonesia.

Somewhere a telethon is being planned. Like other colossal "acts of nature", the fatality of earthquakes seriously obscures our ability to reflect on how absolutely and awesomely cool they are. Still, it's possible. Unlike war, we can – from a respectful distance – admire a monstrous storm, the power of a volcano, or a wicked earthquake. So I'd like to take this opportunity to register my appreciation of this latest reminder that we are but fickle visitors on a king-hell bitch of a planet, you know, before the reports of death and destruction would make such a pronouncement unseemly. As for those of us safely ensconced in the U.S.A., I'd also like to address our inevitable shifting of focus to ourselves:

March seems to be a time for "great" (magnitude 9 and above) U.S. earthquakes. According to USGS seismic data, March saw the two largest earthquakes ever recorded in U.S. history. On March 28, 1964, Prince William Sound (Alaska) experienced a 9.2 magnitude event that took 125 lives and caused $311 million in property loss. On March 9, 1957, the Andreanof Islands, Alaska, felt a 9.1 temblor.

Three or four days left…let's all cross our fingers and hope for the best.