January 2005
This month: A Cable Guy's Lament . . . & . . . TSUNAMI of the Century
Heeeeeere's Johnny! posted: 1-30-05
The passing of an American Icon
Heh, did you hear what Johnny Carson said last night? . . .
Johnny Carson's Tonight Show ran from 1962 to 1992. No one could have been more a part of the every day "American fabric" as I grew from adolescence to mature adulthood during those thirty years.
"When he died Sunday, his quiet retirement of nearly 13 years hadn't dimmed the memory of his three decades as king of late-night or the admiration of entertainers and others.
"All of us who came after are pretenders. We will not see the likes of him again," said David Letterman, host of CBS' "Late Show."
President Bush described Carson as "a steady and reassuring presence in homes across America for three decades. His wit and insight made Americans laugh and think and had a profound influence on American life and entertainment."
Carson died early Sunday morning, according to his nephew, Jeff Sotzing. He did not provide further details, but NBC said Carson died of emphysema - a respiratory disease that can be attributed to smoking - at his Malibu home." - www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6504289
"Carson became the host of NBC's The Tonight Show on October 2, 1962. His co-host was Ed McMahon thoughout his entire tenure with the program. His first guest was Groucho Marx, who had been one of many substitute hosts following the departure of Jack Paar. Carson shared writing credit on "Johnny's Theme", the title music for his version of the program, which was co-written by Paul Anka.
For millions of Americans, watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson at the end of the evening became a ritual, and Carson became a well-known entertainer loved by many. Most of the later shows began with music and the announcement by Ed McMahon "Heeeeeere's Johnny!," followed by a brief comedic monologue by Carson. This was often followed by comedy sketches, interviews, and music. Carson's trademark was a golf swing at the end of his Tonight Show monologues. During his tenure, The Tonight Show was often referred to as "the Johnny Carson show" or just "Carson"." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Carson
" 'Johnny Carson on TV,' one of his colleagues confided to me, 'is the visible eighth of an iceberg called Johnny Carson.' The remark took me back to something that Carson said of himself ten years ago, when, in the course of a question-and-answer session with viewers, he was asked, 'What made you a star?' He replied, 'I started out in a gaseous state, and then I cooled.' "
- from: Profile of Carson, by Kenneth Tynan, appeared in The New Yorker in 1978.
www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?050124fr_archive03
"Johnny Carson didn't invent late-night TV, but he might as well have. For it was his Tonight Show that perfected the art of wee-hours talk, comedy and music, setting a gold standard punctuated by his genius for effortlessly wringing a laugh out of a well-chosen grimace or tie-straightening gesture.
Carson, 79, died Sunday morning. The cause of death was emphysema, NBC reported.
"He was surrounded by his family, whose loss will be immeasurable. There will be no memorial service," his nephew, Jeff Sotzing, told the Associated Press.
In 4,350 shows over nearly 30 years, Carson's Tonight Show reigned supreme. He made stand-up comics' careers with a mere gesture, a "nice stuff" compliment that spoke volumes or an invitation to come sit and chat. Jerry Seinfeld, Roseanne Barr, David Letterman and Carson's successor, Jay Leno, among many others, vaulted to stardom by warming his couch."
- www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2005-01-23-carson-obit_x.htm
Tsunami Of The Century posted: 1-25-05
A Result of Friction - Or Loss Of . . .
Beneath the Indian Ocean, the friction that held the Indian and Burma plates together was overcome and the resulting great quaking of the earth spawned a tidal wave of terror.
At last count: over 200,000 lives lost and unfathomable destruction.
The event might have occurred on any of the 365 days of the year, but happened upon the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Is there some significance? Is it possible, on some universal consciousness level, that the stress and friction between Christians and Muslims might have somehow triggered such a shaking of the earth?
Is there a god? If so - why? . . . why would a god visit such a "great flood" upon so many men, women and .. children? Was it a punishment to the non-Christian . . . or warning to all who spend a holy day basking in selfish luxury - instead of prayer?
Was Allah punishing Muslims for consorting with the "infidel"?
Or was this epic disaster the result of some super secret United States research project? - as those who love to hate the US might theorize?
This planet earth - and its molten magnetic core - its revolutions and rotations - moving in yet mysterious ways. The greatest mystery for me - is how - as much as we think we know - so much mystery remains.
Preliminary Earthquake Report
A great earthquake occurred at 00:58:53 (UTC) on Sunday, December 26, 2004. The magnitude 9.0 event has been located OFF THE WEST COAST OF NORTHERN SUMATRA.
"The devastating megathrust earthquake of December 26, 2004, occurred on the interface of the India and Burma plates and was caused by the release of stresses that develop as the India plate subducts beneath the overriding Burma plate. The India plate begins its descent into the mantle at the Sunda trench, which lies to the west of the earthquake's epicenter. The trench is the surface expression of the plate interface between the Australia and India plates, situated to the southwest of the trench, and the Burma and Sunda plates, situated to the northeast."
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/usslav.htm
Three mailing lists are available that provide earthquake information rapidly on a subscription basis. Use this page to subscribe and unsubscribe to any or all of these mailing lists. - http://earthquake.usgs.gov/products/neic_data_services.html
U.S. ANNOUNCES PLAN FOR AN IMPROVED TSUNAMI DETECTION AND WARNING SYSTEM
"The new system will provide the United States with nearly 100% detection capability for a U.S. coastal tsunami, allowing response within minutes. The new system will also expand monitoring capabilities throughout the entire Pacific and Caribbean basins, providing tsunami warning for regions bordering half of the world's oceans.
The United States has led the GEOSS effort since 2003 when the G-8 called for establishing a global observation system. The United States launched the GEOSS process by hosting the first Earth Observation Summit in July 2003. GEOSS now has 54 participating nations, including India, Indonesia and Thailand. The GEOSS design for this new system is scheduled to be adopted at the Third Earth Observation Summit that will be held in Brussels this February." - http://www.noaa.gov/
U.S. Plan for an Improved Tsunami Detection and Warning System - http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami-hazard
How Scientists and Victims Watched Helplessly
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: December 31, 2004
(excerpts from a New York Times article)
Hawaii: Helpless Warners
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center
It was just after 3 p.m. in Honolulu, nearly halfway around the globe from where the earth was trembling. Mr. Hirshorn worked at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, a stubby cinderblock structure set in a weedy plain in Ewa Beach. He was one of five staff scientists entrusted with the big task of alerting Pacific countries and the United States military to deadly tsunamis.
"I knew it wasn't tiny," he said. "Probably over a 6." The messages on his beepers indicated alerts from two far-apart seismic monitoring stations, meaning the quake had power. - Barry Hirshorn, geophysicist
Stuart Weinstein, 43, was already at a terminal in the windowless operations room, staring at the thick blue seismic lines that signaled an "event." "This is a big earthquake," he recalled thinking. "Maybe a 7."
Dr. Weinstein began pinpointing the location. Sliding into the seat beside him, Mr. Hirshorn waited to calculate the magnitude. Within minutes, they concluded it was a quake of 8.0 magnitude.
At 3:14 p.m., 15 minutes after the earthquake struck, they issued a routine bulletin announcing an event off Sumatra with a magnitude of 8.0. It added, "There is no tsunami warning or watch in effect." This referred to the Pacific.
The bulletin alerted perhaps 26 countries, including Indonesia and Thailand, though it did not go to other coastal areas of the Indian Ocean, for they were not part of any warning system.
Next, the men tackled a slower but more precise means to measure an earthquake, using waves that pierce the earth's mantle rather than simply the initial waves. They got an 8.5, a marked difference in possible threat. "Uh oh," Dr. Weinstein said.
It was 3:45 and time to call the boss: Dr. Charles McCreery . . .
Dr. McCreery, 54, said a fresh bulletin should go out, reporting the higher magnitude and mentioning the chance of a tsunami near the epicenter. But he and his colleagues doubted that an 8.5 quake would unleash a far-ranging "teletsunami" that could traverse an ocean and wipe out villages.
Once the second bulletin left, at 4:04 p.m., there was little more that their machines could confide, unless tsunamis crossed the Indian Ocean and entered the Pacific. They had no sea monitors in the Indian Ocean.
Dr. Weinstein scrolled the Internet. They tuned in CNN on television. Only in the same way that most of the world learned, from news reports, did the three men come to see the ghastly reality, the widening tsunami paths and the lethal coastal destruction.
A wire dispatch at 5:30 told them that Sri Lanka had been pounded. Their spirits drooped. "More are going to die," Mr. Hirshorn said.
Their instinct was to somehow tell more, to warn the region that it would continue, to reach people who could clear beaches. But how? Mr. Hirshorn recalled a tsunami expert he knew in Australia, called and got an answering machine. He left a message. Someone phoned the International Tsunami Information Center, asking if they knew people in the stricken region. The center simply had no contacts in this distant world.
At 7:25, an e-mail message from Harvard's seismology group reckoned the earthquake at 8.9. Now they understood why such a monster tsunami had been unleashed.
They continued to scramble to reach countries that could still escape death, but they were reaching into a void. Around 10:15 p.m., they did speak to the United States embassies in Mauritius and Madagascar, which promised to warn Somalia and Kenya, not yet hit, but it is unclear what came of this.
At the seismograph at the Matsushiro Seismological Observatory, about 110 miles northwest of Tokyo . . .
"Our job is to identify the epicenter and the size of earthquakes all over the world," said Masashi Kobayashi, an official at the observatory.
Mr. Kobayashi said he had calculated the location, as well as the magnitude of the quake. "I reported it is west of Sumatra island, including the latitude and longitude," he said.
And with that, he said, he realized something else.
"When I found it was in the ocean," he said, "I thought the first thing to worry about was a tsunami."
What Mr. Kobayashi did with his information, and concern, is not entirely clear. In an interview, he said he had made his reports to headquarters. It is not clear what, if anything, his superiors did.
Indonesia: First Losses
"The water was coming too hard, too fast," Azwar Muhammad, a local resident, said. "This was God's destiny." - Banda Aceh
Some in Kalmunai remember the ocean's abruptly changing colors from green to a dark, menacing black, as if it were filled with oil. Others remember the water turning white with foam. All recall the first wave's shape: a 10- to 12-foot-tall wall of water.
Three subsequent waves, each larger and more powerful than the last, obliterated the neighborhood and reached 700 yards inland. The waves ripped sturdy, one-story brick homes off their foundations, snapping four-inch-thick brick walls into small chunks. It picked up cars and swept them hundreds of yards inland. . . . - Kalmunai on the east coast of Sri Lanka
Early Predictors or "I Told You So"
At a meeting of the group in Lima, Peru, in September 1997, for example, its members had considered proposals to expand the network to the Indian Ocean, particularly because of Indonesia's tectonic activity. Nothing concrete happened.
Among the scientists who kept up a restrained but insistent pressure was Dr. Phil Cummins, a seismologist with Australia's geosciences agency. He continued to gather and present evidence that an Indian Ocean tsunami was inevitable, although unpredictable in terms of timing, and posed a grave threat to many countries. He met with no ill will, but with considerable inertia, he said. . . .
He made his case in October 2003, at a meeting of the international tsunami group in Wellington, New Zealand, when he pushed for formal expansion of the international network into the Indian Ocean.
The group rebuffed him, saying, in the stiff language of meeting minutes, that any such expansion could occur only if an overarching governing body dealing in global oceanographic issues formally redefined its "terms of reference."
There have been accounts in newspapers of officials in Indonesia and Thailand and Malaysia struggling to comprehend the threat and get out warnings. All agree that, whatever people's intentions or capabilities, no sufficient warnings were transmitted that might have limited the toll at some of the hardest-hit places.
Every one is so polite - no accusations - no fault found. I have a different opinion.
What If?
According to a BBC article - Timeline: Asian tsunami disaster -
There was a two hour period between the recording of the quake and land fall at Sri Lanka - where 10's of thousands died. Was it because of the holiday - were officials unavailable? - or an overall lack of initiative? It is my personal feeling that thousands of lives might have been saved if experts and officials had been more pro-active.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4154791.stm
No Fault Found?
Some claim that announcements would have been useless - because local authorities would not have the means to respond. The example of Mombasa suggests otherwise. At the risk of being a "finger pointer" - I believe that thousands of lives could have been saved - if numerous scientists and officials had been willing to err on the side of being over cautious. In the following example the officials did have the added advantage of knowing that the threat was real - knowing that a tsunami had already hit other shores. Still, it is an example of a local official who read the signs and took action:
Capt. Twalib Hamisi was sitting in his office at the Port Authority in Mombasa, Kenya . . . ,"The tide was supposed to be falling, but it was rising," Mr. Hamisi, the harbor master, recalled. "I went to the water, and we saw it moving really fast. I thought a pipe might be broken in the port."
It was about 1 p.m. Sunday, and he decided to call other ports in Malindi and Lamu, where workers reported similar water movements. "It was like seeing the sun setting in the east," he said. "The tide was crazy. The water wasn't following the rules."
Then, Mr. Hamisi said, the minister of foreign affairs phoned to report the heavy damage in Asia.
After realizing the direction the waves were headed, Mr. Hamisi called the Port Authority director. "I said: 'We have a problem. We have to institute our emergency plan.' "
The emergency plan was intended for things like oil spills or fires, not tsunamis. But it was all they had. The police were informed to evacuate beaches. The news media were called to spread the word. The local authorities were mobilized up and down the coast. Radio messages were sent to commercial fishing vessels and ships. For the wooden dhows that are so common in Kenya and that lack radio communication, the looming danger was spread by word of mouth.
At Jomo Kenyatta Beach in Mombasa, there were thousands of people packed on the sand. The police made announcements at first, and then armed riot policemen moved in to relocate people away from the water.
"It was Sunday, so the beaches were full of holiday makers," Mr. Hamisi said. . . .
(subscription required) http://www.nytimes.com
a Cable Guy's Lament posted: 1-01-05
Another Dog Day
It would have been nice if I'd gotten off work on time. After all, with the Christmas holiday, I would begin a four day vacation starting tommorrow. But, I knew when I began my 8 hour shift this morning that I would not get off by 5pm. Maybe some guys had called in sick (early start on holiday)- or maybe there were a lot of issues resulting from changes the company made to upgrade customer services - probably both. At any rate, I had more than the usual number of jobs assigned to me. This day was definitely going to the dogs; and I accepted it.
Speaking of dogs - as my day transitioned into early evening - there were dogs present at each of my last three jobs.
There was a wonderful pekinese, of show quality and hairdo, introduced to me by her equally lovely "mastress" with a sweet southern accent. I repaired the cut in her underground cable. And - as I loaded up my van in the parking lot - a lonely chocolate lab surprised me. He kept looking at an upstairs apartment window. He'd been cut loose in the night to do his duty, by his lazy owner. I watched carefully for him as I drove slowly out of the dark parking lot.
I was late to my next customer, but in keeping with the holiday - they were very pleasant and just glad to see me; late on a Saturday evening. The young couple shared their small apartment with a pug - their "child" - no doubt. I replaced the cable box and the cable that was crushed beneath the antique entertainment center. The pug wanted to be involved - like many small children - constantly called back by his parents. When I finished, the pug made one last play for attention and I finally talked to him, "You are a big dog (His parents had told me - he sees himself that way.)! Thanks for being so patient while I worked." I petted him on the shoulder and he turned around with delight - finally acknowledged.
It was now about 7pm and I had one last job to go to.
The notes on my work order for this last job indicated that this customer was having trouble with her remote control . . . and that she had a health issue that might result in her being slow to answer the door. I pictured in my mind a frail little old lady, confused - and probably a bit overwhelmed by digital cable. I had such a customer earlier in the day, whom I was able to help over the phone. What the heck, I'll just stop by, spend five minutes showing her how to use her remote and then I would finally be free to go home and enjoy my extended weekend.
I managed to find her townhouse at the end of a poorly lit circular drive; parked in a no parking zone; placed my cones; pocketed a new remote (just in case) and went to the front door. I heard a sound at the door as I approached and saw that it was open (Thank goodness - first hurdle overcome.). I could hear her talking - saying something to "Sweetie" . . . and then she came to the door. There wasn't much light, but I could see numerous sores on her face; she invited me to come in. As we walked past the kitchen alcove I noticed a barricade of chairs and she began saying, "Lay down Sweetie; now what did Grandma say? You just stay there and lay down.". I began staring at an empty entertainment center as she informed me that she understood that dogs should be put away for me. I said yes and thank you.
Still staring at the empty entertainment center in the dimly lit room, I asked what was going on with her cable (Problem with the remote?)?
She explained and I listened - with disbelief and a well hidden frustration. I wanted to go home . . . now. The more she talked, the more I puzzled together - a picture of her in this darkened room. She was lonely (about my age), mentally troubled and perhaps medicated (probably medicated). I knew if I allowed myself to become frustrated she would pick up on my irritation - and who knows in what disastrous manner she might react. I had no choice, but to be saintly.
"The man on the phone tried to help me, but he couldn't and so he told me they would send someone out. The man said to disconnect everything. .... Yes, I'm having problems with my remote."
The television and VCR and cable box and cables were scattered around the room. The entertainment center loomed large and empty ("problems with my remote").
My eyes, adjusting to the light, avoided looking at her face . . . and the sores. Only mildly curious as to what sort of dogs she housed in this small townhouse - I glanced into the darkened kitchen area, behind the barricade of chairs. It was a rottweiler ! . . . No, ... two?! . . . two rottweilers !!
I was not going to be frustrated and fail in my attempt to hide my irritation. I was not going to be frightened . . . and fail in my attempt to prevent the smell of fear from arousing the three of them. I was going to be saintly; calm and saintly. I wasn't going to tell her what a stupid thing she did - dismantling everything - because she was having problems with her remote. After all - it had been customer service that had advised her thus (No allowance for common sense here.).
I re-assembled her equipment; gave her a new remote (because I knew that's what she really wanted - aside from a visitor). I allowed her to believe I was married - as she spoke of her three former husbands. I went thru some channels and taught her how to use the new model of remote. She was very pleased.
I was very pleased. I had managed to behave well.
Buoyed by my sense of accomplishment and maybe ... feeling St Francis at my shoulder - I took an unnecessary risk. I leaned slightly over the barricade and thanked the rottweilers for being such good dogs (and not attacking and biting and killing me). They were polite. I was lucky.
My five minute job had turned into forty, but an overall success - none the less.
All of today's dogs were good. And the day - this "dog day" - though long and with its moments less pleasant - ended well.
