Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Death, Disaster and Warfare: Have a Nice Day!


In recent days, we have witnessed the devastation of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, intense socio-political upheaval in the Middle East and the absurd meltdown of Charlie Sheen. Of course, the latter is inane, not life-threatening to anyone but Sheen himself (and perhaps a few suicidal “Sheenites”) and a clear reflection of the madness of popular culture, Twitter, etc. However, the former two news items affect vast populations of people; their ripple effects are global and significant. At times like these, it is easy to lose perspective and think, “OMG, the sky is falling!” And for some the sky is falling—in the form of nuclear radiation; therefore, I do not intend to make light of their plight.

In any event, curious to learn more about the relative human effects of natural disasters and warfare, I did a little Wikipedia research and discovered that Mother Nature and Father War have wreaked far greater havoc with lowly Humankind than we have seen in the past month or so. For example, the Shaanxi earthquake of 1556 killed an estimated 830,000 people. I’m not sure about the fidelity of record-keeping back then, but that’s a whopping big number any way you slice it. More recently, in 2004, the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami wiped out about 230,000 individuals—and it’s only sixth on the list of earthquake “genocides.” The current death toll in the Middle East conflicts in Egypt and Libya (and several other countries) is in the tens of thousands. It is no surprise that WWII, including the Sin-Japanese War, takes the laurel wreath for this one, with an estimated death toll of anywhere from forty to seventy million. These figures are staggering: double the current population of Canada!

As I was perusing these figures, I came across some other little tidbits that gave me pause. Did you know that the Aztecs are alleged to have ritually sacrificed upwards of 1.5 million of their own? The European colonization of Africa and Asia (from the late 1700s to the late 1900s) killed an estimated high of sixty million souls. And the European colonization of the Americas, apparently ongoing from 1492, has killed an estimated high of 200 million people.

What is my point? Whereas Mother Nature is indifferent towards disasters and genocide, Father War has a vested interest in warfare and annihilation. Of course, this is the big difference: the former (Carl Jung’s anima) is natural and not pre-ordained; the latter (animus) is unnatural and willful. Will there always be warfare and natural disasters? I would be willing to wager heavily on the positive response to this question. No matter how much we would like to think otherwise, we cannot control Human or Mother Nature. Stuff happens. And if you don’t believe the facts, just look at Charlie Sheen…

Monday, March 14, 2011

Air Canada Gets It...

Air Canada gets it

Air Canada did what the NHL failed to do: send a clear message on head shots. If more corporate sponsors spoke up in this fashion, the league would be forced to take action. The beautiful sport of hockey is being marred by selfish, violent acts and, consequently, losing some of its best players, e.g., Sidney Crosby.

Brian Moore

N.D.G.

For full text: http://www.montrealgazette.com

search: "Air Canada gets it"

©

Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette