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Wave of Destruction
Photograph by Mainichi Shimbun, Reuters
A tsunami wave crashes over a street in Miyako City, Iwate Prefecture, in northeastern Japan on March 11.
Published March 15, 201
 
NASA satellite imagery
Read More: Apple , Electricity , Green Living , Ipad , Ipad 2 , Japan , Renewable Energy , Technology , Tsunami ,Technology News
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brenda-peterson/confessions-of-an-appleah_b_837252.html
The day the tsunami struck Japan, Apple launched its tsunami-seller, the iPad2. My calendar for 3.11.11 -- the date of the massive 9.0 earthquake -- was steady:
1. Write
2. Teach 3. 5 p.m.: Stand in line for iPad2
When the first iPad was unleashed, like Harry Potter's magical wand, but for adults -- I stood in line for three hours to buy the shiny portal for my parents. The hype around the iPad2 this spring is almost unbearable. And, like a true APPLEaholic, I was driven by "the hunger." After all, it was Eve who first ate that apple promising the Tree of Knowledge.
I count myself among the disciples to Steve Job's elegant technology, his sleek, design style born of his calligraphy training, his artistry and eloquence that make Microsoft geeks look like dunderheads -- or worse, drones. Self-employed, I'd endured decades of Microsoft's disdainful tech support.
Now I'm a slave to the pampering of Apple Care; I'm drunk at the Genius Bar where I can cozy up to an amiable expert as we confess our astonishment at all things Apple. The continuing education of Apple classes calls me like a church service or revival meeting.
In fact, as my Apple addiction grew I embraced the iPhone, graced my writing desk with a stylish iMac, and streamed Apple TV. That's why I found myself standing in an endless line of other devotees for the first iPad. A magical creation that changes the world, according to Apple ads. Kind of like a tsunami.
Is there any cosmic coincidence that the iPad2 hit the world the same date as a tsunami? Watching the heartbreaking images of cities falling, whole towns swept out to sea, and people standing in lines desperately searching for their loved ones, I felt suddenly very sober. Amidst such a disaster, how could I go mindlessly stand in line for something that doesn't even work long without electricity? Like Japan.
All those bright, shiny lights blink out. Tall Tokyo buildings eclipsed by a quaking earth. An island world drowning. And the real, awesome power is not technology but water. Long before the discovery of electricity, the ancients understood that water equals power. This equation predated our hydro-electric dams. What happens to power when we mistake it for our own creation and forget the water source from which we borrow, upon which we run our technologies? What happens when our 10-hour batteries die and our smart phones black out?
These thoughts swirled as I watched the tsunami overwhelm Japan. While Japan collapsed into chaos and nuclear reactors exploded, I watched the radioactive rise of sales for Apple's iPad2. Stores nationwide sold out. Now the lines form at ungodly hours as we addicts wait for the hope of a "blind shipment" that may or may not bring us the iPad2.
Like all the newly sober, I self-righteously judged all those APPLEaholics craving their next technological hit. The ridiculously manipulative iPad2 launch (or dribble) with no pre-orders and handy pick-up in stores, consumers strung-out in daily lines - all this caused me to Doubt my faith in Apple. Like all doubt or detox, I began to look within.
Even with the world upside down, why did I and minions still lust after iPad2? Perhaps it's as familiar as a need to escape into an alternate universe because our own world is so unstable. We could fall into the earth's cracks, drown in a tsunami, be swept up in some revolution, or lose our pensions in a collapsing economy. Why not the quick getaway of a magic universe we can hold in our hands? Click. Control. Multi-task.
It took a tsunami to trigger in me this technology sobriety. I find myself wondering: What within us is illuminated when we only light up a screen, a hand-held device, and not our own souls? What do we leave behind when we escape into alternate realities that have nothing to do with the nature upon which our lives depend?
I've just heard a rumor from another APPLEaholic. This techno-wizard says the shortage of iPad2s is due to the lack of a crucial electronic part -- made in Japan. So perhaps there is an eerie connection between this tsunami and the Apple iPad2.
"We have to wait for Japanese factories to rebuild," he says, "and meanwhile, there'll be a worldwide rationing of iPad2s."
Now, when I feel the urge to call my Apple store and ask if they have received another shipment of iPad2 and hear the familiar, "Sold out, don't know when in stock. Just come and stand in line again, starting at 5 a.m." - I slam down the phone.
I remind myself that Lao Tzu says truly wise people are "the light that does not shine." That there is nothing artificial or falsely bright about true power, just as there is a world of difference between neon and starlight. Even if I can see the constellation patterns on my iPad when I hold it up to the heavens.
I tell myself I am in recovery. Like technology-driven Japan. I call my tech-support sponsor and we exchange the tried-and-true oral formulas that all add up to this: You have enough. Our resources are limited -- like the iPad2s. Don't eat the Apple!
Brenda Peterson is the author of 16 books, including the recent memoir I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth, which The Christian Science Monitor named among the "Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Books of2010.
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Friday, March 18, 2011
Confessions of an APPLEholic: From Addiction to Sobriety
Dear Readers, Here is my continuing series on the tsunami and its effect on all our lives, even a world away. They predict a plume of radiation from the nuclear reactors will hit California today. As Chief Sealth, the Squamish Indian elder from whom Seattle takes its name, said: "All things are connected."
Saturday, March 12, 2011
The Water Way and the Tsunami
As we witness the terrible tsunami in Japan and its aftershocks, we can consider both the destructive and the nourishing power of water. Water is a world-changer, a teacher, and the greatest force to be reckoned with on earth. Here's my new Huffington Post meditation on "The Water Way and the Tsunami," as well as a very interesting scientific article link about the connection between climate change and tsunamis. Thanks so much for reading.
Read More: Climate Change , Cnn , Environment , Global Warming , Japan Earthquake 2011 , Natural Gas Earthquakes , Northwest Cable News , Rising Seas , Tsunami , Water Way , Green News
For almost three decades I've lived here in Seattle on the Salish Sea and my apartment is like a glassed in aquarium. Often the waves are fierce and winds howling, so I sleep in my noise-canceling headphones. Our coasts have frequent tsunami drills. Last night, I was just about to brave my windswept bedroom, when news of the 8.9 earthquake and tsunami in Japan broke.
Long past midnight, I stayed awake, watching horrifying images of a tsunami wave cresting and flowing deep into farmland, cars and buildings like tiny toys bobbing about in the slow-motion flood.
"It's like watching a disaster movie -- but for real," the CNN reporter said.
Amidst all the video footage and tweets, I wished some more philosophical caller would have tweeted the Tao Te Ching (Stephen Mitchell translation),
"Nothing in the world is weaker than water,
But it has no better in overcoming the hard"
But it has no better in overcoming the hard"
Water usually humbly follows the lay of the land, its tides are regular, dependable, its currents carry our human cargo and us from shore to shore. But when water rises up, it is a world-changer. That's why in almost every mythology, it was water that once destroyed a world in a great deluge. From the Bible stories of Noah and his ark to our local Skagit Northwest coastal tribe's story of a flood that rose so high it covered all but Mt. Baker and mighty Mt. Rainier -- water is the original stuff of life.
It's also a way of living. The ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism, often called "The Water Way," believed water was the most revered teacher. Lao-tzu, the sixth-century B.C. master whose Tao te Ching is still a classic, wrote long ago:
"The highest good is like water,
for the good of water is that it nourishes without striving."
for the good of water is that it nourishes without striving."
Witnessing this life-changing and terrifying tsunami as it drowns coastlines in Japan, it's difficult to remember how water can be "good." And yet, it is water that nourishes our bodies, our lands, and our souls. Our human bodies are mostly water. Dwelling inside us are individual, inland seas that ebb and flow -- from the blood, to the cranial sacral fluid, to the water that hydrates us.
(read more at this link:)
To the Taoists, water's intuitive, harmonious flow was wiser than the rational attitudes of a linear, man-over-nature mind. Thus according to the ancient Taoist Kuan-tu, "the solution for the Sage who would transform the world lies in water."
Our present day willfulness has taught us much about our own separate selves and little about how to live wisely and at one with our world. A world that is mostly water.
Here in the Northwest, where so much of our life is linked with water, where the Asian influence is keenly felt -- where we await the tsunami from Japan to hit our own West Coast -- we have a chance to not just react or stare numbly at the CNN screen, but to contemplate this Tao or Water Way.
Besides the devastation and despair that such a disaster brings us, does it have any meaning? As we witness the power and force of rising seas, can we now begin to grapple with making changes in our lives to finally face and adapt to global warming?
Today tsunami warnings are sounding along the Oregon and Washington coasts. On our local Northwest Cable News station, we coastal dwellers are advised to head to high ground. Cameras on the beach show eerie low and high tides rise and fall in minutes, not the usual hours. The world seems out of synch. In fact, a geology expert tells us, the Japan Islands earthquake has actually wobbled the North Pole on its axis; and the planet is a little flatter.
Everyone on our Northwest Pacific Rim coasts knows to never turn our backs to the ocean. Every year sneaker waves sweep beachcombers out to drown at sea. But this tsunami is "like sneaker waves on steroids."
Still some people wander the beaches, thrill seekers - or just clueless.
"Foolish, foolish people," the geology expert on the Oregon television station says.
One of my friends in New York city calls to see if I'm okay. At the end of the call she comments, "We never want to be on the wrong side of nature." Her voice is soft, haunted. She's been watching the CNN coverage of the Japan earthquake and tsunami all day.
What should we do, we wonder. Go to our scheduled meetings? Go stand in line and buy an iPad2? Business as usual?
"Of course, somebody on the radio is talking about End Times... " I say.
"Well, maybe the Mayan calendar is right," she wonders.
"Are you going to keep watching?" I ask.
"I think we should witness this," my friend says firmly. "Keep those who are suffering in our thoughts. And try to learn -- something."
More than volcanic fire and wind, earth is sculpted by water. Perhaps then, it is from water we can at last learn how to shape ourselves in its image. To find inside our own watery selves, a way to live in harmony with the way of the world -- which is water.~
Brenda Peterson is a novelist and nature writer, author of Living by Water: True Stories of Nature and Spirit. Her recent memoir, I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth is one ofThe Christian Science Monitor's Top Ten Best Non-fiction Books of 2010. www.IWantToBeLeftBehind.com
Please consider the environment before printing
Is Japan's tsunami linked to climate change? mongabay.com March 11, 2011 While it's unlikely that scientists will be able to provide a definitive answer anytime soon and Japan has long been a hotbed of seismic activity, past research suggests there may indeed be a link between climate change and earthquakes in some parts of the world. Scientists have shown that weight shifts caused by melting glaciers can trigger tectonic activity. As ice melts and waters runs off, tremendous amounts of weight are lifted off Earth's crust. As the newly freed crust settles back to its original, pre-glacier shape, it can cause seismic plates to slip and stimulate volcanic activity, according to research into prehistoric earthquakes and volcanic activity.
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read more at: http://print.news.mongabay.com/2011/0311-japan_tsunami_climate.html
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The Living Earth and the Living Dead: The Ecology of Vampires
from "The Vampire Diaries" on CW channel. Stefan as a vampire who wants only to be human.
Dear Readers,
Here is my latest Huffington Post commentary. It's somewhat out-of-the-box -- or should I say coffin? This post managed to make the front page of the Huffington Post's TWILIGHT FEVER page, as well as the ENVIRONMENT section and Green pages. Strange bedfellows? Perhaps not, when you consider that many young people identify with vampires. Why? Is it really the end of us, as my young student suggests?
I've had many comments from readers and friends on this particular post. One I'd like to add is that the vampire craze is not so much about "eternal youth" as it is as "eternal love." What do you think? Why are we so bloody obsessed?
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The New Yorker's 86th Anniversary: A Look Back
Dear Readers,
This week is the 86th Anniversary of The New Yorker magazine, where I served my editorial apprenticeship in the early 1970s under William Shawn's editorship. In my twenties, I learned so much about the craft of editing, writing, and reading -- lessons I still call upon today after 16 books. It was a great blessing to witness such editors as Rachel MacKenzie and Robert Bingham "meeting in the margins" with writing luminaries. My favorite writers were novelist William Trevor, film critic, Pauline Kael, travel maven, Emily Hahn, and the most prescient Jonathan Schell.
The first time I wrote about my years at the magazine, I did so in fiction in my second novel Becoming the Enemy (Graywolf Press, 1988.) Set at an imaginary publishing house among New York's literati, I created characters, some of them drawn from life and others thoroughly fictional. There are stories within stories, character studies of the complicated patron-protege bond, and a portrait of Manhattan in the days before the Web -- when writing and reading was an avocation. And The New Yorker was the world's finest literary magazine.
I've revisited this literary apprenticeship in non-fiction, with a fond, but humorous eye in my new memoir, I Want To Be Left Behind, in the chapter "I Love to Tell the Story." Recently, a very clever and successful journalist, Tim Appello, asked me to imagine what Pauline Kael might think of the current crop of Oscar contenders for Best Picture and Best Director. Here is a link to that article in The Hollywood Reporter.
Stay tuned for more reminiscences from my New Yorker days to celebrate their anniversary this week!
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Source: hollywoodreporter.com
How Pauline Kael Might Vote: No on 'Social Network,' Maybe on 'Black Swan'
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Pauline Kael's Last Tango typist, author Brenda Peterson, thinks Kael might like Oscar nom Black Swan, but not The Social Network -- and The King's Speech would hit too close to home.
"In the mad monastery of The New Yorker," writes Peterson, "I worked in the typing pool, Walden’s Pond, and stayed late one night because Miss Kael was finishing up an important review. Fervently, she leaned over me as I typed her red-lined prose. She painfully dug her elbows into my shoulders and read aloud, changing words even as I typed her review: phrases like 'thrusting, jabbing eroticism,' and 'the audience was in a state of shock.' "
"So was I. There was palpable electricity running through her. She seemed in an altered state. Her review of this movie, Last Tango in Paris, was muscular and mesmerizing, as passionate as it was prophetic. And even though I didn’t particularly like the movie, Miss Kael’s review explained to me why it was revolutionary."
"I can only guess what Miss Kael might make of the current crop of Oscar nominees. Her editor is right, she might laugh at the excesses of Black Swan; but she might also be engaged by the almost hypnotic sibling rivalry between the women. In its way, it’s a ferocious echo of the sensual, female competition of her Personal Best [she helped writer/director Robert Towne out]."
"Miss Kael struck me as a Luddite so I don’t know if she’d champion Social Network for Best Picture. I do believe she would keenly point out, yet again, the woeful lack of women up for Best Director. And since The New Yorker in the Seventies was so much itself like an aristocratic, Anglophilic asylum where idiosyncrasies were not only allowed but encouraged, The King’s Speech (which I adored) might be too familiar for her to acknowledge as the soaring, somehow humble film it is."
"But what do I know? The still-greatest film critic ever is gone. I miss Pauline Kael’s witty, searingly intelligent reviews. But if I ever worked with her again, I’d bring shoulder pads."
Peterson's 16th book, the new memoir I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth, is one of The Christian Science Monitor's Top 10 Best Non-Fiction Books of 2010, and contains more New Yorker reminiscences.
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