Rikuzen Takata update #4

Sometimes, it's not that you died, but HOW you died.

RIKUZEN-TAKATA, Iwate - An administrator at a hospital destroyed by the March 11 tsunami gave his life to protect a precious lifeline--a satellite phone that was doctors' only link to the outside world after the disaster.
Sixty-year-old Shigeru Yokosawa was scheduled to retire at the end of the month, but he died in the tsunami that consumed Takata Hospital in Rikuzen-Takata.
Since that tragic day, the hospital's staff has continued to work in a makeshift clinic, using the satellite phone to communicate with rescuers and aid workers. Land lines and cell phones in the city were out of service after the disaster, making the satellite phone the only way to request medication and call for help with patients needing emergency care.
Just after the main tremor hit, more than 100 people--hospital staff, patients and local residents who had come seeking shelter--were in the four-story concrete building. Minutes later, people started shouting a huge tsunami was approaching.

According to Kaname Tomioka, a 49-year-old hospital administrator, he was on the building's third floor when he looked out the window and saw a tsunami more than 10 meters high coming straight at him. Tomioka ran down to the first floor staff room and saw Yokosawa trying to unhook the satellite phone by the window.
Satellite phones are vitally important during disasters, when land lines are often cut and cell phone towers are down.
Tomioka shouted to Yokosawa, "A tsunami's coming. You have to escape immediately!" But Yokosawa said, "No! We need this no matter what."
Yokosawa got the phone free and handed it to Tomioka, who ran up to the roof. Seconds later, the tsunami struck--engulfing the building up to the fourth floor--and Yokosawa went missing.
Hospital staff could not get the satellite phone to work on March 11, but when they tried again after being rescued from their rooftop refuge by a helicopter on March 13, they were able to make a connection. With the phone, the surviving staff was able to ask other hospitals and suppliers to send medication and other supplies.
On March 15, four days after the quake, the remaining staff set up the makeshift clinic in a community center and went back to work caring for patients. Since its launch, the makeshift clinic has seen more than 150 patients a day.
As of Tuesday, the satellite phone was still the only available tool for obtaining information about patients in shelters who needed emergency care.

On Monday, Yokosawa's wife Sumiko, 60, and his son Junji, 32, found his body in a morgue. On Tuesday, they brought him back home to Shiwacho in the prefecture.
Yokosawa's job as a prefectural government hospital administrator took him to many places throughout his career, sometimes far from his family. Two years ago, he became the hospital's chief administrator.
Yokosawa's coworkers praised him for his gentle ways and the attention he paid to patients.
Sumiko said when she saw her husband's body, she told him in her mind, "Darling, you worked hard," and carefully cleaned some sand from his face. She said she had believed he was alive but had been too busy at the hospital to contact his family.
"I'm proud of all the good my husband did for the people there," she said. "Now that his body is at home, his soul should be at rest."
Someone has taped a piece of paper to the satellite phone that reads: "Yokosawa's phone. Our chief is helping us from heaven."
-The Yomiuri Shimbun/Asia News Network

And sometimes, it's about how you live.


Makeshift housing takes shape in hard-hit town


Yomiuri Shimbun March 21, 2011


The construction of makeshift housing has begun in the city of Rikuzen-Takata, devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The government and industrial organizations are speeding up efforts to secure enough materials to build temporary housing for people displaced by the disaster. Efforts at supporting and rebuilding the daily lives of quake-affected people are coming into reality, albeit slowly. In Rikuzen-Takata, 10,547 people - nearly half the population - are forced to live at evacuation sites.
In the schoolyard of Rikuzen-Takata No. 1 middle school, now home to 1,250 people -the largest number of evacuees at one place in the city -heavy construction machinery and trucks loaded with construction material arrived one after another over the weekend.
Said Rikuzen-Takata Mayor Futoshi Toba said: "We have to move forward, so it is quite encouraging that the construction work is now starting."
The planned makeshift houses are one-storey buildings that have two rooms plus a dining kitchen, with a total floor space of 30 square metres (322 sq. ft.) each. In this schoolyard, about 200 houses will be built in about three weeks. Elsewhere in the prefecture, about 100 temporary houses will be built on a playground in Kamaishi, with the houses expected to be ready for evacuees to move into late next month.
"I hope we can move into a makeshift house and lead a life with some time to relax as soon as possible," said aid Chiharu Murakami, 36, a mother from Rikuzen-Takata whose house, built just two years ago, was washed away by the tsunami.


Even here, life has a tendancy to heal. And as I speculated at the beginning of this story, the same people who stood up for the beauty of their world time and again are not just walking away.

As a sidelight, I wondered how the people of our sister city of Takaoka came through all this. As it turns out, Takaoka is south of Tokyo on the other side of Honshu, about as safe as you could be on the island. A group of students on tour in England said they felt the quake, but no one was harmed. It also didn't stop a group of students visiting Ft.Wayne last week and hosted by Bishop Luers families.

more march manglings, and an update.

Out of sheer boredom, and after a fellow blogger celebrated her 50,000th view in just under a year, and because I'm a stat freak, here's some totally meaningless numbers.



Early this year, I installed those groovy little cool/interesting/funny counters at the bottom of my posts. Thus far, My blog posts have recorded 15 interestings, 4 cools, and 2 funnys. TWO funnys?? WTF? I thought I was much funnier than that! Of course the fact that I got about 5 times as many interestings as I deserved somewhat balances it. Over this time period, I've collected 111 comments in around 70 posts. Considering that I only had 136 in the previous 240-odd posts since I started, not too shabby, you guys!

Also this year, I added a TAW facebook page. It has already garnered me another 2,742 viewings, with the highest (very surprisingly) belonging to the Feb. 3rd Eurohockey update. However, if comments were money, I'd be bankrupt. Oh, well, how many people do I need to tell me I have a screw loose?

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News begins to slow down in the Japan disaster as we settle into the "trench warfare" stage of the proceedings. I was not surprised to hear that the ultimate solution of sealing the reactors in concrete has at last come up. Here's another report from Rikuzen Takata from the Globe and Mail's Mark MacKinnon:

When the tsunami warning buzzer rang out over this sleepy port on Japan’s northeast coast, people knew what to do because they’d practised for the moment all their lives. They calmly left their homes and made their way to the gathering places designated by the municipal government: City Hall; a community centre; the local gymnasium.

For hundreds of people, if not more, the shelters they were ordered into proved to be deathtraps. Rikuzen-Takata’s disaster plan had been designed to deal with the three- and four-metre waves the city had seen in 1960 after an earthquake in faraway Chile. No one had anticipated the 15-metre tsunami that crashed through the city on Friday following a 9.0-magnitude earthquake just offshore, one that flung boats, shipping cranes and people inland, drowning those who had done as they were told and gathered in the low-lying shelters.
Of the estimated 1,000 people huddling in the three buildings, the only survivors were 100 people who made their way to the top floor of City Hall. The rest were swept away by a tide so high and fierce that it blew out the walls and windows on all three floors of the neighbouring shopping centre.
“People just relied on the bureaucracy. They became too obedient,” said Tsuyoshi Kinno, head of the neighbourhood committee in one of the districts of Rikuzen-Takata closest to the Pacific coast. “The administration made a mistake.”
Mr. Kinno was wandering through the silent remains of the city Tuesday, poking at the ground with a stick as Rikuzen-Takata continued its gruesome search for the thousands still missing and presumed dead beneath the rubble. In his other hand, he held a mud-covered photograph of a wedding he’d attended. The bride and groom were both among the missing, he said.
One week after Japan earthquake and tsunami, official toll stands at 6,911 dead,10,316 missing. It will continue to rise. Japan hit by record 262 aftershocks of 5.0 or greater since the big quake a week ago.As the full scale of the damage caused to Japan’s east coast gets clearer, it’s becoming plain that this town of 24,000 was among the hardest hit.
Once a pretty port set between the Yokote mountains and the Pacific Coast, Rikuzen-Takata effectively no longer exists. The town centre has been reduced to a vast field of flipped cars, mud-covered furniture and broken concrete. Only a few windowless buildings remain upright in the town centre, jutting up like tombstones from the field of death and destruction around them.
The death toll was still climbing Monday as rescue workers picked through the rubble with sticks, discovering new bodies so fast that they ran out of body bags and started carrying corpses on blankets taken from destroyed homes. Local officials estimated that between 20 and 40 per cent of the city’s predisaster population is dead.
“I think everybody in Takata town [the part of the city closest to the water] is dead,” said Matsumi Konno, a 54-year-old woman who was scanning a missing persons message board set up in a hilltop middle school that has been converted into a refuge for those who escaped the wreckage below. She was furious that her friends and neighbours had been herded into shelters so close to the coastline.
Mr. Kinno, the neighbourhood committee head, agreed that many had died because of poor preparation. Although he was outside Rikuzen-Takata when he felt the initial earthquake, he turned around and drove back into town when he heard the tsunami alarm.
When the 73-year-old arrived downtown, he was appalled to see so many people huddled inside the tiny community centre. “It was unintelligent,” he said, so he asked everyone to follow him to higher ground.
It was too late. As Mr. Kinno led a group of 60 people outside, he saw the wall of water coming for them. “It was black, black water. It was as if Godzilla had come and was trying to eat the people,” he recalled with awe in his voice.
Forty of those who followed Mr. Kinno into the streets were swept away in the rush of black. The rest scrambled into City Hall and raced the water up the stairs to the top floor, those moving too slowly drowning on their way up the stairs, Mr. Kinno said.
The water poured right through Rikuzen-Takata, and rushed past the mountains, filling the rice-growing valleys in between. The devastation carried five kilometres up the road into tiny mountain villages from where the ocean previously hadn’t been visible.
“We didn’t think this was possible,” said 52-year-old Iwako Onodera as she picked her way through the soggy and smashed remains of her family’s two-storey home, which now had a disconnected stretch of railway track and a flipped white Toyota van in the backyard. Though Ms. Onodera and her children were away when the wave struck, her parents died when water flooded the entire ground floor of the house.
Her brother Kaoru built the family home 10 years ago, but as he and Ms. Onodera salvaged whatever they could from the house, he said he didn’t expect to be back. “I don’t think people will want to move back here.”

And that is the saddest part. The home where I grew up was sold and remodeled; when I got the opportunity to return, some time after, it looked much the same on the outside. Standing inside, I did not recognize it. I stood stunned for minutes trying to get a sense of bearings I would never find. That is a fraction of what the survivors in dozens of Japanese cities and villages are going through. I wonder, if the government could wave a magic wand and remove the debris, rebuild the levees, the buildings, and the homes, how many would say, "This is no longer my home" and walk away as Kaoru Onodera plans.

My son KC notes that this disaster has brought out the "fire and brimstone" in many preachers.
I don't agree with either the "this is a judgement" or the "this is a sign of the end times" crowd. But what I will say is this. Being ready for the 8.2 quake (as the reactors were) but not the 9.0 that hit; being ready the ten-foot wave from 1960 and not the 50-foot one that came; the levee that could withstand the cat 3 hurricane and not the monster that was Katrina. New Orleans, Haiti, Chile, Pakistan, Christchurch, and now Sendai have shown us two things. Number one: safety measures on the cheap dictated by actuarial tables and short-term past history are no help when the planet itself is somehow becoming more violent. Number two: God's creation can break anything we build. If we follow the scientific data that protects us from the most disaster most economically, they fail and people die. If we build the safety measure to protect against a 10.0 earthquake and 100-foot tsunami, somehow we'll get hit with a meteorite which dwarfs our daydreams of destruction. The news media seems to think every disaster shows where we weren't prepared enough, we should have done more. At a certain point, we've got to just do the best we can and live with the consequences.

Rikuzen Takata update #3

WAAAY too tired to really do this justice, but just got this article on reliefnet.com:

OBI delivers large quantity of rice to devastated Rikuzen Takata, Japan
Source: Operation Blessing International
Date: 17 Mar 2011
Snow, Lack Of fuel, Impassable Roads Making Relief Efforts Difficult
RIKUZEN TAKATA, JAPAN (March 17, 2011) -- For the last two days the Operation Blessing International (OBI) disaster relief team has supplied food and water to over 1,500 people despite heavy snow, a lack of fuel, impassable roads, and the nuclear threat.
Yesterday the OBI team, under the direction of David Darg, director of international disaster relief, drove to the city of Oshu, where, thanks to the charity’s donors, they were able to purchase a large amount of rice at a supermarket. Darg had learned about the situation in Rikuzen Takata, a completely devastated area to the North that had only just been made accessible and was desperately low on food.
The team drove north through the mountains and a heavy snowstorm with whiteout conditions, only to arrive to a scene of total devastation unlike anything David Darg had seen before.
Darg said, “Since 2005, I have responded to dozens of major disasters around the world. In all my experience, I have never seen destruction like I saw in Rikuzen Takata today. Thousands of homes had been disintegrated into millions of fragments of wood. One three story building that must have been 70 feet tall gave clues to how high the Tsunami waters were; one resident told us that people taking refuge on the roof were standing in water up to their waists! The military had just bulldozed some of the roads clear, leaving walls of debris 25 feet high that we walked through like a maze. The debris was a mixture of wooden homes, household items and mud.
It is believed around 10,000 people were either killed or are still missing right here.”
OBI set up at one of 50 shelters, a school housing over 1,000 people, many of whom were sleeping in the auditorium. “The leadership at the shelter were so grateful when we told them we had rice. They are feeding the 1000 people in the shelter and 200 more who are without food. Up until now, the center had only been able to provide bread in very limited amounts and this was difficult, especially for the elderly who were very hungry.”
The rice that OBI provided should last the shelter one week.
On Tuesday, the team provided food and drinking water for 250 people who have set up a makeshift shelter in a school building in Shiogama, a city also decimated by the disaster.
Said Darg, “Families have moved into the classrooms and are sleeping on the floors on blankets. Outside, some of the families were burning wood in a metal can to keep warm; a sight that I’m told is very unusual for Japan where electricity and fuel networks are widespread. The food and water we had in the van was unloaded into the school kitchen and within 2 hours was being served to everyone in the shelter.”
Next, OBI is planning to distribute kerosene for the heaters in the shelters, as the temperature remains below freezing.

If you check out OBI's website (as I did), this story is fleshed out in a blog by Mr. Darg. He tells the story of one elderly gentleman who thought that his house had survived the inrush of the Tsunami, only to watch it float out to sea when it abated. He did manage to recover an Imperial Medal given him by former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori some ten years ago.

I honestly have a hard time comprehending what it would be like standing on the ROOF of a 4-story building in WAIST-DEEP water, having to hang on to something, anything, for dear life and thinking, "THERE IS NO PLACE LEFT TO GO." I hope it never gets any clearer, for any of us.

Some seriousness, some fun

Before I heartlessy go on to the fun stuff, here's an article about the "myth of preparedness" from the Daily Yomiyuri:

RIKUZEN-TAKATA, Iwate--Tsunami caused by the massive Tohoku earthquake were so high they instantly breached the large embankments built along the Sanriku coastal region, local people said.
The region is equipped with highly advanced anti-tsunami measures constructed after previous disasters, including tsunami caused by the Great Chilean Earthquake in 1960 that killed 142 people in Japan.
One of the embankments in the region is even recorded in Guinness World Records.
After the tsunami left the region's towns covered in mud and debris from destroyed buildings, some survivors regret that too much confidence had been placed in the embankments.
"We all believed tsunami would never reach our area," said Ikuo Sugano, 61, who operates a futon shop in the Takatacho Omachi district in Rikuzen-Takata.
The area has been hit by many tsunami following earthquakes, including the Meiji-Sanriku quake in 1896, Showa Sanriku quake in 1933 and 1960 Chilean quake.
However, the Omachi area, which is about a kilometer from the coast, was not affected by the Chilean quake. As a result, local residents believed tsunami would never reach the area.
When they held a study session to prepare for powerful earthquakes and tsunami two months ago, they only discussed accepting survivors from other areas and preparing meals for them.
They never imagined they would be tsunami victims themselves.
"I remember the time [of the tsunami caused by the Chilean quake], but I never thought a stronger tsunami was possible," Sugano said. "I was much too optimistic."
In the Tohoku quake, a 10-meter wave of water poured into the Omachi area and instantly smashed shops and houses to matchwood.
Although there is some high ground north of the area, very few local residents headed toward it to reach safety.
Nearly 60 percent of people belonging to the area's neighborhood association are still missing.
"All of us thought the tsunami would never reach our places. But we were wrong," said a 63-year-old man who lives in an area about one kilometer inland from the Omachi area. His house was destroyed in the tsunami.
"Our embankment is the best in the world. How come we suffered that much?" asked a resident in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, as he looked with dismay at what was left of the embankment.
===
Recorded in Guinness book
The 1,960-meter-long embankment was built at a cost of 130 billion yen over a 30-year period from 1978.
It was the nation's first embankment designed to resist the most powerful earthquake. Its foundation was built on the seabed 63 meters below the surface of the sea. It was recorded in Guinness World Records as the embankment that is the world's deepest in water.
When a major quake hit Chile in February last year, the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry's Tohoku Regional Bureau proudly announced that the embankment helped keep back the tsunami that reached the area.
"Some people had built new houses near the coast because they were so confident in the embankment," the Kamaishi resident said with a sigh as he stood in front of the debris of destroyed houses.
===
No match for raging torrent
In Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, many people were killed in the tsunami caused by 1960 Chilean quake.
As a result, a large embankment was built at the mouth of the Ofunato Bay.
According to the city's port and business department, the tsunami destroyed most of the 291-meter-long southern part of the embankment and all of the 243.7-meter-long northern part.
Although local residents saw the embankment as a visual symbol of the city's invulnerability against tsunami, it had weakened over time.
"We were almost sure we could start strengthening it with funds from next fiscal year's budget," a city employee in charge of disaster prevention said.
In the city's Sanrikucho Okirai area, 19 people were killed in the 1933 Showa Sanriku quake and ensuing tsunami.
Shinsaku Katayama, 85, a survivor of that tsunami who works in the construction business and lives in the area, has given lectures at primary and middle schools to increase teachers' and students' awareness of the danger of tsunami, using notes of the 1933 disaster he compiled over a one-year period.
Katayama said the number of participants in local disaster drills had fallen over the past few years and he felt awareness of the danger of tsunami had declined.
"Because of the embankments, they never imagined they'd be hit by tsunami. They acted as if nothing untoward would happen," he said with an air of despair.

I didn't highlight certain passages to dig a knife into their backs. I did it to remind us, the world is the Titanic. No matter what we feel we are prepared for, there is always something out there waiting to overwhelm it. That is why I feel so sad for our atheist brethren- this kind of thing is Exactly why we need faith in a Loving and Merciful God. Without Him, losing everything would mean... losing everything.

_____________________________________________________________

Okay, now let's have a little fun with this week's crop of e-mail scammers. Our first contestant showed up Tuesday:
SCAM VICTIM REIMBURSEMENT.
We wish to bring to your notice as a delegate from the Nigeria Government Reimbursement committee under the strict supervision of the United Nations to pay 230 Nigerian 419 scam victims the sum of $7,500.000.00 (Seven Million Five Hundred United states Dollars) each. You are hereby listed as one of the beneficiaries for this immediate reimbursement of funds.As a result of this laudable recommendations,it is imperative to bring to your notice that during the last U.N. meeting held in Abuja, Nigeria,it was alarmed by so many countries around the world about loss of funds by various foreigners to these scam artists operating in syndicates all over the world today.
In other to redeem the good image of our dear country,the President has ordered the immediate payment of $7,500.000.00 (Seven Million Five Hundred United states Dollars) each to the affected victims in accordance with the U.N. directives.Due to the corrupt and inefficient Banking Systems in Nigeria, these payments are to be made by ECO BANK OF NIGERIA as the corresponding paying bank under the funding assistance of the INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND(WORLD BANK) Presently, 184 Beneficiaries have been paid, more than 50% of the victims are from the United States,while about 40% are from other parts of the world.Your particulars were among those mentioned by some of the Syndicates hat were apprehended in Lagos, Nigeria as one of the victims of the operations, you are hereby warned not to communicate or duplicate this message to anybody for any reason whatsoever as the U.S. secret service in conjunction with The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has swung into action to track these set of criminals down.Once again,you are expected to keep away until these criminals are all apprehended.The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) (Motto: No Body is Above the Law) have combined effort with the United Nations Anti-crime commission to alleviate the plight of these victims as well as redeeming the image of our dear country.
Many Banks, Universal firms, Companies and individuals have been in bankruptcy today due to the activity of these hoodlums. However, a thorough investigation revealed that these people have dropped over 500,000 victims across the world, after collecting their money falsely, many as a result of this have committed suicide,while others are now living in abject poverty.As regards these on going developmental strive, we have over 200 suspects at hand, 135 in kirikri prisons.While many are awaiting trial, we are still in search of others,who think they are wise, and hope that you will assist by giving any vital information that could lead to the apprehension of these hoodlums.
You SHALL receive your reimbursement via TRANSFER PAYMENT SYSTEM. We shall be waiting to hearing from you for the final claim of your $7,500.000.00 (Seven Million Five Hundred United states Dollars) Reimbursement fund.Finally, you are urgently advised to furnish this office with your full names/address, your direct phone/fax number, your age/marital status and an attach copy of any of your recent Identity.Awaiting for your prompt response.
Yours faithfully,
DR.ASHINZE AUSTIN
FRAUD VICTIMS REIMBURSEMENT CHAIRMAN.
TEL:+234-812-286-4272

Okay, so let's look this over. First, do you really think any president from any country would establish a scam-payback fund out of wanting to "redeem the name of this dear country"? Okay, we could all see Obama doing it, and there may well be chief execs out there who are even dum... er, more politically correct than Barrack. Second, "Due to the corrupt and inefficient Banking Systems in Nigeria, these payments are to be made by ECO BANK OF NIGERIA as the corresponding paying bank". So, since the Nigerian system is so corrupt, let's pay things out through a Nigerian bank. Good thinking there! Third, What does the Secret Service have to do with investigating financial crimes. Fourth, interesting that I was on the "dumbass got scammed list" when I haven't yet get quite that stupid yet. Maybe they're looking for that other CW Martin who still lives in New Haven. Fifth, while there is an apparently legit EFFC, I was not able to find any link to "corny mottos" on their site. Sixth, I think you mean that they have "duped" 500 k people around the world, not "dropped", unless they combine their monetary services with a travel agency. Finally, "As regards these on going developmental strive". WTF does THAT mean? Other than if these people are really involved with the UN, they might want to cross-ref with UNESCO and learn proper grammar. That sentence came straight out of one of my son's 6th grade essay assignments.

This next one actually tried to weave a little more reality into the BS.
Atten Dear Sir/Madam
This message is permitted to be read only by the beneficiary of this address for security purposes? We have been having meetings for over (5) Five Month and we have come to the final conclusion from our last meeting held at our headquarter February 28th, 2011 with the president of Benin Republic Dr. Thomas Yayi Boni and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mrs. Mariam Aladji.
The United Nations Office have agreed to compensate you with the sum of $1.500,000.00USD and that is why we decided to contact you directly and make sure that this information reached you, This funds have been arranged for you through our ATM Swift Card Payment Center Diamond Bank Plc as that is the latest instruction by His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-Moon The Secretary-General The United Nations.
This compensation includes every foreign contractors that may have not received their contract fund and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international businesses that failed due to Government problems etc?
You are advised to contact our representative Mr. Jim Wilfred of Diamond Bank PLC Benin Republic and Send to him your full contact details as follow: (1) Full names….: (2) Country:...... (3)Address:...... (4)City:........ (5)Tel Phone: (6) Occupation :......(7)Age:... (8): Sex.....
Contact Mr. Jim Wilfred With the Below Information:
Contact Person Mr. Jim Wilfred
Director Diamond Bank Plc
Benin Republic
Email: (infoatmcustomercare@globomail.com )
Phone: +229-9917-2795
Click on this link to see by yourself (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/ik344.doc.htm)
Making the world a better place
Regards,
Ms. Asha-Rose Migiro

Okay, so there is a President Thomas Yayi Boni in Benin, and Ms. Migiro is a deputy to Ban Ki-Moon. And, despite my doubts, "His Excellency IS the proper way to address a UN Sec-Gen. There is even a Diamond Bank PLC , although it is in NIGERIA (obviously a part of that corrupt Nigerian banking system), not Benin. Also, we see two question marks, both of them where they do not belong. Another glitch in the google Yoruba to English program, no doubt. Also, and this is a tip to you would be victims out there- Are you a contractor whose done business in Benin? Or a business person with dealings in Benin? I'M NOT! And nobody seems to know who Jim Wilford is, except the scam sites that have various examples of his handiwork.

Finally, Punctuation? We don' need no Steenkin' punctuation!

Christopher the economy is not the same as it used to be the internet is where you make the most money now we will be more well off now than ever before you wont regret giving this program a shot you dont need experience to use this program http://j.mp/dZBO3j there is no limited to your boundaries

Okay, let's all take a breath and look at this. First of all, I have a PSA for my wonderful readers _ let's not be stupid and click on any of these links, okay? I'm quite confident that they are full of ooze that will choke off all the love and kindness that resides in your computer. Second, if the internet was the place to make money we'd all be rich, eh? Third, "there is no LIMITED to your boundaries." (Oops, shouldn't have put that period in there.) Again, welcome to the KC Martin School of Grammar circa 1990.

Rikuzen Takata update #2

At this point we have an abundance of pictures from the city, showing what it looks like now. Before we go there, a fellow blogger posted pictures of her time there in the spring of 2006. You can see them at http://fightswithivy.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/memories-of-miyagi/. Another person commented on my last update and gives a link to more devastation, including a look at a still standing school they used to teach at. Other pictures can be seen at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/photo/2011-03/15/c_13779776.htm. Here are another couple I found.


The wide-angle view.

The scale of the disaster.


Yasunobu Sasaki is the school principal who is now basically in charge of the school-turned-shelter. He says, "The people are exhausted both physically and mentally." He says they can do nothing but shivver under blankets due to the hypothermia and low temperatures, and he cannot find enough food to give them the 3 meals a day they need to recover. Reporter Mark Mackinnon of Canada's Globe and Mail tweeted that he was told that 40% of the pre-quake population of the town is likely dead. That would be 9,200 to 9,800 in just this town.

I don't mean to make it appear that this is the only place people are suffering. The town of Minamsanriku has 1,000 confirmed dead and 8,000 still unaccounted for. In Otsuchi, 12,000 out of a population of 15,000 are missing. And it goes on.

Rikuzen Takata update

I've been combing the reports for info on the Town I decided to feature in the Japan tragedy, Rikuzen-Takata. One report said that only 5,900 of a population of over 23,000 had managed to find shelter before the tsunami hit. Police said Saturday morning that they had dug up 300-400 bodies already from the debris. Rikuzen-Takata, described by the Daily Yomiyuri online as one of six nearby communities whose "administrative functions are paralyzed" (no surprise since the wave reached to the third floor of the city hall), was flown over Saturday morning by Yomiyuri reporter Koji Yasuda, who gave this report:

" The next town south was Rikuzen-Takata, but almost no buildings were to be seen where the town should have been located. It seemed as if the port town had suddenly vanished. What I could see there were only medium-rise buildings believed to be made of reinforced concrete, such as a hospital."

Reading about it only gives a vague idea. Here's video from the town.




In the meantime I found this report, orignally in German, on the fate of the Asia League and the Anyang Halla team.

Asia earthquake prevented League final
Saturday 12 March 2011, 18:32
- Martin Merk
The severe earthquake in Japan left over 1000 dead and hockey not spared. The final series of the Asian league, which would have to start yesterday, was canceled until further notice. The two teams had this blessing in disguise, because they were both on the hard-hit east coast in Fukushima Prefecture. The home team, the Tohoku Free Blades trained in its ice rink in Koriyama, Japan when the earthquake struck. The players immediately rushed from the ice to shake as the earth and pieces of concrete started falling off. The crew spent the night in an office building because their hotel was damaged.
Even the visiting team, the defending champion Anyang Halla in South Korea, had a blessing in disguise. It was only just landed in Sendai and on the way to Koriyama, when the earthquake began. The team is now in Fukushima, and only a short time before there was an explosion at a nuclear power plant took place, took off and returned to South Korea. When the playoffs will continue is as yet unclear and especially for the Japanese probably currently not in the foreground.

Sounds like the Korean team dodged several bullets. I'll keep checking the updates on this, but let me go around to the league's Japanese cities and see how they fared.
Nikko (home of the Ice Bucks)- found nothing. No news is good news, eh?
Kushiro (home of the Nippon Paper Cranes)- in the north of Hokkaido, away from the damage.
Tomokomai(home of the Oji Eagles)- on the south shore of Hokkaido, some minimal damage to docks.
Hachinhoe (one of two home bases for the Tohoku Free Blades)- whole areas flooded, lots of ships washed ashore, including a fishing boat thought lost in the wave, from which 81 survivors were choppered out.
Koriyama (their other home)- plenty of damage, but standing enough that the FoxNews stringers moved there when the radiation evacs began.

That's the news for now. I'll keep following news from Rikuzen-Takata for a while.

Japan update

The Indiana attorney-general asks you to check out charities to give donations for Japan through www.CharityNavigator.org . This site gives ratings and charity by charity info. We chose AmeriCares, which was higher rated and gives more right to the project than Red Cross. Only drawback id the donation is collected through NetworkForGood, which charges a fee that can come off the top of your donation of get added on.

And don't forget, God doesn't charge a fee for prayer.

Eurohockey update

Lots is happening in our look at the international hockey competitions, including one new travelogue city and an update from the quake-shattered Asia League.



The Asia League website has the 3 games of the finals scheduled for yesterday through Thursday marked as Cancelled. The finals were to feature Anyang Halla, who upset regular season champion Oji 5-4 in OT to win the series 4 to 1, and the Tohoku Free Blades, who won consecutive 4-1 games to defeat the Cranes. However, Tohoku plays some of their home games in Koriyama (which is 60 miles south of Sendai) and some at Hachinohe (166 miles north of Sendai). The games were to be played in Koriyama; but a report from Canadian Tohoku player Brad Farynuk said that the Arena was ruined, with concrete falling and other damage. He said that he thought the games would be moved to Korea, but he thought that the Anyang team was stuck on a bullet train somewhere between Tokyo and Koriyama. In the meantime, his wife is stuck at their home in Hachinohe; she says they have no power or water, and that she can see boats that have been washed ashore.



The English EIHL and the German DEL are still playing, with the EIHL going till the 25th and the DEL finishing tomorrow. Sheffield's Steelers (a popular hockey name in Europe) still leads a three team group within 2 points of each other at the top; the DEL is led by Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg by 3 points. Their playoffs, which start with the 7-10 seeds playing a best of three to see who got the final 2 quarterfinal slots, start Wednesday.



In France, Amiens has a 2 to 1 lead on Briancon after winning the last 2; Gap also leads their series with Strasbourg 2 to 1, despite a 9-2 Strasbourg win in game three. Last season's finalists ripped through the round to advance to the semis; Rouen rolled to 6-2, 4-1, and 6-1 wins over Morzine-Avoriaz; Angers was even more dominant in 8-0, 10-1, and 7-5 wins over Villard de Lans. They will await the winners of the other two series.



In Switzerland, EV Zug finally finished off Geneve Servette in a 5-4 win that took over 110 minutes of OT to take that series 4 to 2. Zug will play season champ Davos while SC Bern meets Kloten in the semis which start Wednesday.



In Italy, Val Pusteria put up back to back OT wins to take a 3 to 0 lead on Valpellice in the semis, while Bolzano dominated in 4-2 and 5-2 wins to take the same lead over defending playoff champ Asiago.



In Austria, KAC finished off KHL Zagreb with a 6-5 OT win in game 5; they will play my VSV team, who finished off last year's playoff runner-up Black Wings Linz with a 5-2 win in game 5, in the semis. Also in the semis are defending champ Red Bull Salzburg who eliminated Olympja Ljubljana in 5 games with another OT win (three of 4 quarterfinal series were decided with an OT final); they'll play the Vienna Capitals, who downed the Graz 99ers in a 4 game sweep.



In the Czech Extraliga, Slavia Praha took 5-2 and 4-3 wins over White Tigers Liberec to take a 3-1 lead over the league's#2 team. Vitkovice Steel took a 3-2 shootout win in game five with Mountfield and a 3-2 lead in their series Friday. Litvinov Brezina recovered from 2 opening losses to season champ Ocelari Trinec with 5-3 and 4-2 wins to surprisingly tie the series at 2 games apiece. And Pardubice is at home waiting on the others after mowing down PSG Zlin in four straight.



In Slovakia, Kosice had already won into the second round, as had Poprad. Kosice will play Dukla Trencin, who upset Slovan Bratislava, with 6-3 and 5-2 wins completing a comeback from down 3 games to 0 to win 4 to 3. Poprad will face Banska Bystrika, who won 2 tight games at the end to avoid an upset by HK Zvolen 4 to 3.



In Norway, Sparta Sarpsborg rolled to 6-0 and 4-0 wins over Rosenborg to sweep their first round series. They will face Lillehammer, who downed Storhammer in 5 games. Second place Stavenger routed Frisk Asker 6-1, 8-4, and 5-2 to take their series 4 games to 1 and they will now face Lorenskog, who won three straight to upset defending champ Valerenga 4 to 1.



In Sweden, season champ HV71 is well on the way to an inglorious exit ; AIK has won all three games, including 4-2 and 3-1 wins in Jonkoping, and can sweep them with a home win Tuesday in Stockholm. Farjestad has won the first 2 against Brynas; Skelleftea and Linkoping are at 1 game apiece; and Lulea has notched consecutive 2-1 wins over Djurgardens.



In Denmark, SonderjsykE won their last three to advance out of the round robin. Blue Fox Herning smashed Fredrikshaven 9-4 in the RR finale, so it became SonderjyskE vs Fredrikshaven and Herning vs Rodovre in the semis. SonderjyskE took their opener 2-1 on Mike Grey's power play goal 1:51 into OT; BFH gave up the puck at center ice to Rodovre's Morten Andreassen 2 1/2 minutes into OT and he tallied his 2nd goal of the game to give the Mighty Bulls a 1 game lead in their series, 4-3.



In the KHL, Avangard clocked Neftekhimk 7-3 last Sunday to become the last team into the second round. And here again they are struggling, having lost 4-2 and 4-3 OT matches to Metallurg Magnitogorsk. In the other Eastern series, Salavat Yulaev has took both of the first two games- a 3-2 OT opener, and 3-1 in a match where Ak Bars missed, not one, but 2 empty net chances. In the West, SKA has a 2 to 1 lead over Atlant after a 3-0 win this morning. Lokomotiv blasted Dinamo Riga 8-4 this morning behind three goals by Daniel Tjarnquist to retake a 2-1 lead.



Finally, JYP Jyvaskyla (39-13-8) finished off the S-M Liiga regular season as champs this week. The playoffs start today with a best of 3 round between the 7-10 teams for the last two quarterfinal spots. HPK faces the Ilves of Tampere, while Karpat faces the Blues of Espoo.

JYP was founded in 1977, and play in the 4,628-seat Synergie Areena. They have a championship in 2009 to their credit, and are in a trading partnership with the NHL's Boston Bruins.



Jyvaskyla is located dead center of the big southern "bulb" of Finland. Built between Lakes Paijame and Jyvasjari, it contains 37 lakes in the old town alone. Built by Russian Czar Nicholas I in 1837, it grew dramatically after the end of
the "Continuation War"- the battle fought between Finland and Nazi Germany against Soviet Russia from 1941-44- because of refugees from Karelia who fled the Soviet return. Finland's education center, it is often called "the Athens of Finland". It is the fastest growing city in the nation, with a population aproaching 131,000.



That's it for this round. Be back next week when we take a look at (presumably) the German city of Wolfsburg and (maybe) more info on the situation in Japan.

Rikuzen Takata

Rikuzen Takata was sleepy little port city of 23,000 people. It nestled in the area of the south end of the Rikuchu Kaigan National Park, where the soaring 200-meter precipices of the coastline began to soften into sandy dunes. Upstream of the waterways of the park, in the nineteen-nineties they invited in a new type of purification plant to end the problem of their waste degrading the natural beauty of the park.





An area surrounded by quiet rice patties, one of its few tourist attractions was the Museum of Sea and Shell, dedicated to mollusks and their evolution from Cambrian times to now. Not exactly Disney World, but not everything has to be.





According to the April 1976 issue of the Rotarian magazine, there is a high hill overlooking the town upon which a now-vanished castle was built 800 years ago. The plateau at the top was known as Hommaru (the inner citadel); and in the early 1900's the citizenry took it upon themselves to plant a park of cherry trees. It was the most popular place in the town, until the neccessities of WWII forced them to cut down the trees and turn it into desperately needed farmland.






In 1972, the Rotary celebrated their tenth year there by re-creating a park. Naming it Midori-no-Oka (Green Hill), they raised half a million Yen and every member spent 2 hours a day clearing, bulldozing, landscaping, and planting. Their example drew the rest of the town to the project, and in the end over 3,000 townspeople worked to make Green Hill once again the favorite recreational spot in the city.

I write this so that when you say your prayers or send your money to help Japan and towns like Rikuzen Takata, you'll remember that it was a living, breathing town of people who worked, lived, and loved together...

Before it became this...

It is being described as "totally obliterated" by the Japanese media. Rikuzen Takada has come off the mat before, and restored beauty to ruin. The question is, are there Takadans left to rebuild. As I write this, the official death toll is in the six hundreds, with many more missing. And if a city of 23,000 can just vanish, you know this is a lowball estimate.

I hope, somehow, there were 23,000 people watching this from Midori-no-Oka. What I know is, I thank God he has preserved me thus far. Preserved my family. Put me in Indiana, where I avoid earthquakes, Tsunamis, hurricanes, and alligators and sharks. Left me only to dodge the occasional lazy-ass armed robbed and the odd tornado. And where I can pray.

Tribute to the fallen at Domodedovo

Да благословит Бог России

Мы скорбим о Вас

Disasters

Tonight on the way home, I heard about the earthquake in Pakistan. Of course, Pat Miller made it out to be worse than it was (he accidentally called it a "9.4" quake.) But then, in true end of the work-day callousness, I thought, "Serves 'em right."

Now, it was just a brief knee-jerk reaction, and I immediately felt bad about it. Serves who right? Well, maybe if you concentrated all the corrupt government officials, all the civil servants in the Taliban's back pocket, the terrorists hiding under a rock, the al-Qaida radicals brainwashing a new generation of children who'll never get the chance to be children, and the various assorted misogynists and wife-beaters who apparently get a religious "out" in Muslim nations, then just maybe you might have a group who might possibly be "served right", though that is up to God, and I'm sure if He felt so, He'd see to it.

Not my place to judge.

Did it serve the 15,000 likely dirt poor residents of Dalbandin right? They probably would have been just as happy to never have heard of the Taliban, al-Qaida, assault weapons, roadside bombs, homicide bombers, 90% of the governments they've had since Victoria was crowned Empress of India, the USA, NATO, CENTO, the UN, the IRS, or the fatwah of the week. Were they "served right?" That kind of logic tells us that the USA is the great Satan, nutcases are inspired by Rush Limbaugh, and that the definition of persecution includes having to look at "In God We Trust" on coins and licence plates and at nativity scenes on courthouse lawns. Yeah, they really deserved it.

Y'know, back about a year ago when I started this blog, I regularly featured disasters like the ones in Haiti and Chile. And not long ago, a friend asked me if I was following the great flood in Australia. Yes, I had; and I had thought about doing a post on it, but 2 thoughts stopped me. One of them involved being able to do the story justice, or cynically, fitting entertainment value. The other was, if I do one about that, what about the flood in Brazil? The volcanoes in Indonesia? The Mudslides in Guatemala? The human tragedy of Mexico's unwillingness to fight a war on drugs? The scorching heat in central and eastern Europe? When I started, I was hoping to drum up at least prayer support for those who were suffering. But then it became, is it big enough? Was it newsworthy enough? Should I just pray about this one on my own, rather than bring out the broken record again? And now, we've come to, "serves 'em right". And whether this is face, heart, or soul, it becomes #1 of the seventeen things I am currently ashamed of myself on. (And no, I haven't counted them.)

So tonight, I'll pray for the corrupt officials and dishonest civil servants, the terrorists and the children they are turning into killers, the wife-beaters, the nutcases, and especially the dirt poor residents of Dalbandin. I invite you to do the same- not because you have a list of things to be ashamed of, but because it "serves them right."

God blesses a confessor. As I got to the most intense part of this post, the guy on TV said (paraphrasing): Looking for the perfect gift for your wife/girlfriend on Valentine's day? Have yourself examined for testicular cancer." Truly broke the mood, particularly when I added, "or have her do it!" I suppose I should mark that as #18, but I'm gonna go easy on myself.

A whole lot of Sunday stuff.

First off, Laurie and I have returned to First Baptist. How does this happen? It started with a growing unease at being lost in a crowd not our own at Grace. Then, a few weeks before Easter I found and contacted my old fiend Rob Creek on Facebook. He said his family had returned there, the new pastor was really good, and we should join them there for Easter. In the meantime, we had heard a lot from other people about the pastor, David Trimble, as well, and how the church had went from about 100 at our pre-catastrophe peak down to 35 and was now back in the 80's. Then Shenan called and wanted to come out Easter weekend so she could go with us. Moments later, KC called and told us that pastor Trimble (a frequent customer of his at Mancino's) had invited him as well.


Returning there, we learned that many of those who left even before we did had returned as well- and that Trimble is a very good pastor. He sings, he laughs- when a baby screamed during his message, without batting an eye he said, "Who's grandbaby is that? and the place broke up. So, after attending again the next week, I sent this message to Pastor Chris Norman at Grace:





Dear Chris,
I wanted to let you know that Laurie and I are returning to First Baptist. We've given this a lot of thought, and there are several reasons. None of them have to do with anything that you or anyone at Grace have done or not done. A lot of it has to do with comfort level in a group you don't really fit in. Again, this is not on you; Grace is a big church and lends itself to being more involved with self-starters that have an easier time making friends. One of the things that connect Laurie and I is that neither one of us fit that definition. Another thing is that Grace is a church that by and large is a church driven by professional people (you might say management types) with a higher level of energy and resources than we have. Again, this is not a bad thing; however, it makes us a drain on you if you stop to meet us, and us left out if you don't. First Baptist is smaller, and more blue collar, as it were. Most importantly, as we have reviewed the situation, we have found that several of our old friends, who left First Baptist in the same time frame we did, have now returned. The circumstances of finding this out, and the invitations we received as a result, makes us feel that the time in our lives that Grace's blessings were meant for us is at an end and God is trying to put the FBC house back in order, and somehow we are a part of that plan. Also, I find that a more old time church with hymn-book music and one-and-out sermons are more beneficial to me personally. I'm trying hard not to make this sound like a critique; we all respond differently to different types of messages, and you are a very good teacher. I get more out of messages in which I find that one thing that attaches itself and speaks to me than I do series.
I want to personally thank you, for your patience, your enthusiasm, and the wonderful counselling that you provided during our sojourn with you. You encouraged me to put hard things in God's hands, and I appreciate that.I pray that God continues to bless the walk that all of you are taking at Grace. Keep in mind when you read this that what I'm basically saying is that God has made different kinds of churches for the different kind of people he made; and it is time for us to return to a church made for us. I know that God will do great things through you, and hope He has that in mind for us as well.

Our prayers will go with you.
Chris Martin





To which he replied:


Hey there, Chris. Thanks so much for the kind e-mail. I completely understand what you are saying, and I can certainly appreciate it. I pray for God’s blessings on you and Laurie and on First Baptist.

I have appreciated our interaction over the years, and I know you all want to serve God.

Blessings to you my friend.

Chris





Of course, as I write this, we missed church this week. 12-hr days and a nooner on Saturday really took it's toll; as services began at FBC, we were just struggling out of bed.





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The next thing of note is, did you see that the volcano I said might be the next big disaster has shut down air travel all over Europe- including President Obama's trip to the Polish president's funeral? You think God read my blog on that? I also make a more serious note of the far-from-widely-publicized quake in China that claimed over a thousand lives this week. The year of the earthquake rolls on.





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I found this picture on a blog I follow, thought you'd all like it.














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Finally, I was convinced in research last night that I should add the English Ice Hockey League (EIHL) to the Euro-leagues I follow. Coventry took the regular season with a 38-18 record; they lost in the playoff semis and it was #2 Belfast Giants who won their first championship in the perpetually-struggling British hockey scene. Now here's where it becomes typically British-backward. The first two rounds are best-of-twos (where if the games are split it becomes a total-goal series- a little soccer right here on ice). The championship, however, is a one-game, winner-take-all affair (unlike the rest of the world, which generally start at 2-of-3's or 3-of-5's and graduate to 4-of 7's). Belfast downed Cornwall in this match 3-2 to become the winner. Of course, in Jolly Ol', this isn't quite the end, as they have two more post season tourneys there. It is, however, the end of our coverage of the EIHL.

I also found a site dedicated to attendance figures of the Euro Leagues. It does not seem to have KHL updated past the teams that went on past the Quarterfinals, so no Lokomotiv and no Dinamo Riga. But at the point he was updated to, he had the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (Ger.) tops at a 5800 per game average (and Eisbaren Berlin the top draw at a 14,000 average), with the KHL second with a 5400 ave., the Czech Extraliga 3rd with 5200, Finland's S-M Liga 4th at 5000, and then dropping to the Austrian Erste Bank Hockey Liga at around 3300. The best draw of all the Euro teams, again discounting any KHLers who survived round one, were SC Bern from the Swiss National League A at over 16,000, followed by Eisbaren Berlin. Several teams in the Swedish, Finnish, and Russian second-tier leagues outdraw the smaller first tier leagues.

Today's thoughts.

Well, we made it through March without a major disaster, but April has shifted us to man-made crises. On top of mining disasters in China and West Virginia, today we get news of the crash of a plane en route to a commemoration of the WWII Katyn Massacre near Smolensk. The pilots ignored ATC instructions to divert due to fog. 97 people died including the President of Poland, his army chief of staff, the chief chaplain, the head of the national bank, the head of the national security office, the civil rights commissioner, deputies in parliament and the foriegn ministries, multiple presidential aides and lawmakers, and the woman whose firing in 1980 sparked the strikes that coalesced into Solidarity. A who's who of dignitaries unheard of since the sinking of the Titanic. Makes me wonder who gave the order for the pilots to ignore instructions to turn off from the North Smolensk airport to Minsk. Did the pilots choose on their own? Or was it President Lech Kaczynski, who was already flying in the face of decorum by attending without invite instead of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who was officially invited by his Russian counterpart Vladmir Putin? In the long run, I guess it doesn't matter to the dead, who now add their ghosts to the 22,000 Poles who died at Stalin's hands there in 1940.
"This is unbelievable — this tragic, cursed Katyn," Kaczynski's predecessor, Aleksander Kwasniewski, said on TVN24 television.
It is "a cursed place, horrible symbolism," he said. "It's hard to believe. You get chills down your spine."


My other thought today is on the court battle shaping up in Greenwood, Indiana. Briefly, the student body voted to retain the traditional openning prayer at their graduation this year. Voting against was Valedictorian-to-be Eric Workman, who took the case to that bastion of the little guy, the ACLU. Now my main beef is not about the fight per se, since we see this kind of lunacy all the time any more. Nor is it at this pseudo-intellectual Workman, who thinks himself more important than the rest of his class. In my day, a handfull of football players would have taken care of his arrogance. Here's what pisses me off, excuse the appropriate language. Here's a quote from the ALCU minion fighting the case:
Ken Falk, Workman's lawyer and the ACLU's legal director in Indiana, said he's surprised that anyone would fight back against such strong case law.
"You cannot have people's rights depend on majority rule — that's the whole purpose here — the majority cannot vote to establish religion," he said. "It's pretty straightforward. That just isn't allowed."
Say what? I thought this country was run on majority rule. Does this mean McCain is actually president and health care failed? Falk seems to miss the difference between the minority's rights being protected and being highlighted to the detriment of the majority. I remember about 95 years ago, a nation was established on just the principle Falk claims we must live by. It was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I'm sure you remember, it used to be in all the papers. It died an ignorant death in the 1990's due to the fact that the majority finally got tired of taking crap from a minority who thought they knew better and was willing to step on majority rights to prove it.
I'm not saying in that analogy that Falk is wrong. I'm sure that Obama and Reid and that... woman, Pelosi, would agree 100% with him. I'm just saying it's a shame Putin didn't invite Falk, et. al., to Katyn. Perhaps (if the plane landed safely), one of them might look around and say, "You know, this was done by a government just like the one, a society just like the one, we're trying to build. The Nazis were murdering Jews at the same time they discovered it, and even they were disgusted. Is this what we truly want?"
I doubt that any of them would see that, though. Odds are better with the plane crash.

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I wanted to add a couple of animal sightings today. Shenan spotted a muskrat in the river when I took her down the IPFW river walk last week. And this morning, Scrappy and I found a dead squirrel on the sidewalk up by the office. By his position, I'm guessing that he missed his branch way up in the tree, but not the ground below it. Either that, or he smoked and didn't watch his diet or exercise.

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Finally, Salavat Yulaev goalie Oleg Tverdovsky (formerly of the Washington Caps) was called for a hooking penalty with under 5 minutes to go in a 1-1 game- the only penalty they drew the whole game. Just before the power play expired, Illya Nikulin scored to give Ak Bars the 2-1 win and 4-2 series win over the boys from Ufa. Ak Bars will go to the Gagarian cup finals for the second straight year.

a little news, a little fun, a little hockey, a little love.

First the news:

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from the Eyjafjallajokull ( Iceland)volcano, but a state of emergency was declared and scientists feared the eruption could trigger a larger and potentially more dangerous eruption at the Katla volcano.
Saturday's eruption, which occurred just before midnight (2000 EDT, 8 p.m. EDT), came weeks after a series of small earthquakes. Television footage showed lava flows along the fissure.
"This was a rather small and peaceful eruption but we are concerned that it could trigger an eruption at the nearby Katla volcano, a vicious volcano that could cause both local and global damage," said Pall Einarsson, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland's Institute of Earth Science.

Could this be the harbinger of our March disaster? Stay tuned.

Next, the fun.

Former President Bill Clinton poked fun at his ex-veep Saturday, telling the Gridiron Club's annual dinner that he was speaking on the night before the start of spring, "otherwise known to Al Gore as proof of global warming."
Clinton also made fun of Republicans, his White House successors, his own health and his audience of reporters, saying he was there because "I really didn't have anything much better to do tonight."
Clinton, who stood in for President Obama, said Democrats are going to pass health care.
"It may not happen in my lifetime, or Dick Cheney's, but hopefully by Easter," he said referring to his and the former vice president's heart ailments.
Obama, who's preparing for Sunday's probable House vote on health care reform, spoke to the dinner via videotape, saying that when he called Clinton to stand in for him, the former president said, "Let me clear my schedule for the next three years."
Clinton said Obama told him he was busy in the White House "polishing up his Nobel Peace Prize." Obama, he joked, asked: "You've got one of these, don't you?" -- a joke rooted in reports Clinton is unhappy that the current president got a Nobel Prize after only months in office while Clinton failed to be awarded one after long efforts to bring peace to the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East.
The dinner marked the 125th annual gathering of the Gridiron Club, whose members include Washington-based reporters.
In another reference to his health, Clinton said his favorite cocktail now was "Lipitor on the rocks," referring to the widely prescribed cholesterol-lowering medicine.
He said that when Obama appeared recently on Fox News the president was "keeping his word about meeting with hostile leaders without preconditions."
In a poke at Obama's combative chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, the former president said, "I found Rahm. I created him. I made him what he is today. I am so sorry."
In the 1990s, Emanuel worked in Clinton's White House.

I always knew Bill was a comedian. I just never found him funny before. Thanks to FoxNews for those stories.

And , the hockey. Maxim Yakutsenya got his 4th goal of the playoffs at 0:19 of the second OT to give Neftekhimik a series-tying 2-1 win over Salavat Yulaev in a game that saw the goalies make a combined 83 saves. And Ak Bars sneaks out a 3-2 win to take a 2-0 lead on Metallurg. Stanislav Chistov had tied the back-and-forth game for Magnitogorsk with 6 minutes left; But along came Alexi Morozov, unsatisfied with his hat trick yesterday, scoring with 1:48 left to win it for the Snow Leopards.

Finally, a shout out to my (current) favorite nephew, Andy Schible, who sent me this:

Thx Uncle Chris! love you blog btw

See? One out of 5 nephews love this blog! We'll work on doctors and pharmacists next.