Earthquakes Large and Small

Alaskan Temblor
All descent Alaskans, I know at least two, are thrilled down to their toenails by the quake that struck Sen. Ted Stevens. Like an old tree, dead at its root and rotten to its core, Stevens fall was a predictable as the sun setting in Nome in December. It was a welcome, damn enjoyable sight.

California's Big One
Mid-sized earthquakes the size of the one that hit near Los Angeles yesterday happen somewhere in California of average on one per year. People who don't know shit about California (journalists) immediately start asking the experts, "Was that the Big One?" I love the restraint of these experts not laughing in the face of the reporters. The Big One won't knock down cans of fruit from grocery store shelves, it will knock down entire grocery stores. The Big One will rend California's water aqueducts and tear down her freeways. Think Anchorage in 1964, San Francisco in 1906, or China in 2008. If The Big One is like dropping a hundred pound weight on your foot, yesterday's earthquake was like dropping an apple.