By PatSullivan
Earthquakes themselves kill very few people, despite popular movie images of the earth suddenly opening up huge crevices that swallow lots of people. Poorly constructed buildings, however, routinely kill many people. 99% of those deaths are in poor countries, like Haiti or India, which lack earthquake resistance know-how, strict building codes (like those that have been in place in California and Japan for decades) and/or a non-corrupt government to enforce those codes.
And, oh, yes, money. That’s particularly important in developing countries where very few people have the funds to make their new homes earthquake or storm resistant, once the international recovery funds dry up.
Some good news, reports earthquake engineer and founder of Build Change, Elisabeth Hausler, Ph.D., is that “in a place like Haiti, building a house to withstand an earthquake can also help it to withstand a hurricane, particularly by tying the roof down to prevent it from flying off in strong winds. For earthquake-resistant design, the roof is often tied to the walls to provide some kind of bracing effect for the walls.
When India was devastated by a January 26, 2001 quake that killed well over 20,000 people, Hausler was halfway through a civil engineering Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley. At the same time, she was undergoing an existential crisis: how could she do something truly meaningful with her training? How she turned that question into Build Change, which helps create safer housing in developing countries, is a textbook example of how the mind of a visionary works. Continue reading this post »
By PatSullivan
Do you ever feel called to say something and don’t know exactly what it is? Or wish someone else would say that something that could cut through anything from confusion and fear-mongering or overwhelm to a quiet truth? A truth that could get you and others, just for a moment, to stop? To listen? To find clear wisdom for whatever ails or calls you?
I really want that right now, not just around the ever-present health care financing issue, but around everything else that’s dominating the news today, like how hard it is for many of us to make a living right now. Like how many people we know are stuck in painful jobs they hate but don’t dare leave. Or for those of us who are entrepreneurs, where the next clients are coming from in a time when so many are still cutting back. Continue reading this post »
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Activism,
Health care,
Uncategorized,
comedy,
economy,
money,
prayer,
prophecy,
spirituality,
work,
workplace
By PatSullivan
The Bible and other sacred texts are filled with prophets who blow the whistle on danger, fraud, waste or abuse of power. Other prophets alert us to the good news of hope and possibility.
Now that we finally have cable and decent streaming capability on our computers, my husband and I have become faithful to the late night fake news shows of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. We’ve also maintained our loyalty to Bill Moyers on PBS, whose prophetic guests are not always amusing.
The big difference between prophetic comedians and the people we usually think of as prophets is that we’re more likely to listen when we get to laugh first. Continue reading this post »
By pat
Daring to Dream a New Economy When Right Now Things May Be Awful
Right now, people I know are really hurting financially. Here are some examples, all with changed names. Continue reading this post »
