I’ve spent a fair chunk of the morning immersed in the goings-on in Tunisia, where embattled President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali is rapidly losing his grip on power. What strikes me most about the protests is the fact that so much rage has been directed at Ben Ali’s wife, the former Leila Trabelsi, a […]
Tags:corruption·dictatorship·Haiti·Leila Trabelsi·Michele Duvalier·politics·Tunisia
William Wordworth’s “To Toussaint L’ouverture” works beautifully today as a meditation on loss and rebirth: TOUSSAINT, the most unhappy of men! Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough Within thy hearing, or thy head be now Pillowed in some deep dungeon’s earless den; – O miserable Chieftain! where and when Wilt thou find patience? Yet […]
Tags:earthquakes·Haiti·poetry·Toussaint L'ouverture·William Wordsworth
One of the most ghoulish-yet-wise sayings we’ve ever heard is “Earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do.” (Or, a bit more accurately, “poorly constructed buildings do.”) So as soon as we heard news of Haiti’s latest natural catastrophe yesterday, we knew the death toll would be high. There is little chance that the nation’s relatively weak […]
Tags:California·concrete·earthquakes·engineering·Haiti·Iran·natural disasters
