The Tsunami, online content, the mafia, and bombing Iraq
SOUND FILE
Phuket, Thailand - Two weeks after the Tsunami hit my neighborhood, I am just coming back to my senses.
First, the scare: "Tsunami, Tsunami" I ll never forget the face of Pranom when she knocked at my door that morning.
The second next thing, the lack of information.
I had felt the earthquake earlier but wasn't quite sure what happened where and what consequences. The first headlines re. earthquake started coming through about an hour later or so, that I remember.
Search engines updated to the last minute are my only link to the real time world when I am remote.
When I heard the wave had hit, I kind of linked the earthquake to it.
And thought, how come there is a huge earthquake and nobody makes a phone call to the nearest coastlines to alert of a possible ripple?
Honest, I would have just picked up the phone and done it myself, had I had the number at hand.
SYNCHRONISATION
Communication technology is in place, but it is not used to convey information. at least, not the right information at the right time
Instead, some fax was sent and lost, thank you very much
So who is in charge of real time information around this planet?
Tok Tok, anyone there?
Some lethargy is to be expected by humans - okay it was Sunday morning - but 'systems' have been around for years.
They work real neat once they are properly set up.
Repeat: once they are properly set up.
It took more than one hour for the wave to hit the coasts, that would have been enough time to evacuate most popular centers: make a phone call, and send the security forces to move people from the beaches.
Technically, that could be done real smooth.
The problem is not lack of technology, but lack of humans who understand technology.
I bet they are going to waste millions trying to build a tsunami alert, well, let me tell you, that money can be spent better elsewhere, because that system would not cost much to build.
Everything is already in place, it just needs some processes developed to be linked up
INFORMATION NOT COMING THROUGH
Nobody knew much, so for two, three hours, the feeling was helplessness.
What happened, how, how many?
Nobody was in a position to estimate the loss. Nine have died, reported someone to me later that day, on our beach alone, but 81 were wounded and not sure how many missing. But from there it was an easy computational exercise
My first take was that thousands of dead worldwide, and millions affected.
Of course that might have seemed a bit of an overstatement at first.
Then there were the attempts to minimise the issue.
How many? very generic estimates, vague looks, 9 in Patong. The someone said
20, then 31.
Death is bad for business.
But the more people looked around, the more people they found.
There is no way they could have hidden all those bodies from the public eye
It took days and days for to discover more and more bodies, hotels, supermarkets, where people were buried.
Spent the following days in disbelief watching the death toll rise by the hour.
Now, today, two weeks on, they are still piling high, and disposing of them is indeed no diplomatic task.
BUZZ, MEDIA AND HELPLESSNESS
The media started drumming up stories of despair and compassion, encouraging people to donate, donate, donate.
Ting, ting, ting.
Til the sound of the coffers covered the cries.
"The media know how to run a circus better than anyone" said publisher McArthur
who understands the game, on another occasion.
His stuff is online and it looks they have a nice multifacet classification system on Harpers.org. btw.
Two weeks on, despite the superhuman effort from all sides, the feeling is still one of helplessness.
Money is still pouring in, bodies are still being retrieved and stacked in bags with tags -
And the inadequacy of the information systems showing.
But that is just bad planning, it happens all the time.
IT GETS WORSE
Inefficiency, is bad.
To fear that individuals and organizations may profit
from death and relief efforts is very bad,
But the worst thing that is happening now is that organised crime is jumping onto the bandwagon. The mob is coming into the affected areas claiming their share of the act.
Which means: people who are now literally on their knees, they have lost their homes and businesses, will be given a friendly hand, but then they'll be bound for the rest of their business lives to ongoing dealings with the rackets.
The racket can be like a dodgy bank, that binds people who have no other choice than go to them, to their system of money laundering that fuels sexual exploitation and drug abuse, that finances weapons for fundamentalists and walks all over the human rights of men, women and children all around the world
ECONOMIC SUPPORT FOR THE VICTIMS OF THE TSUNAMI
The racket helps people out first, then uses them to its purpose.
If I were like my local travel agent, Mario, and others like him, who had a shack on the beach from which he organised tours around the area and always gave me a very good deal, now I would have lost everything, I would need a good loan to get back on my feet fast.
If I didn't get a good loan, I would have to take whatever money was offered, no matter how dirty
Small businesses affected by the Tsunami now need clean money (if there is any such thing, I dunno) made available to them at very favorable terms.
Sure we should be able to do that?
RELIEF MONEY COULD END UP IN THE WRONG HANDS
To see the relief money being spent to sponsor illegal traffics, arms and drugs dealings, the sex industry, would be the worst of shame for humanity
Yet, I can see mobs on my horizon, creeping from all sides
One of the five members of the Italian team to supervise the tsunami relief funds is a former
prime minister, who was just got acquitted of one sentence after 12 years of trial, and got away with the other sentence due to prescription of terms (it took too long to process the trial).
His cabinet has been sentenced for links to the mafia one of the closest, best documented links to the racket in history of our democracy.
Only a system that lets individuals affected by the tsunami interact directly with individuals, or reputable organizations, under clear and transparent terms, can bypass the network of corruption.
THE EARTHQUAKE AND THE BIG BOMB
I am not quite finished yet.
The bombing of Iraq during the past few years, may have been amaong the fiercest bomb attacks to planet earth in history
Bomb, after bomb, after bomb, after bomb.
If I remember correctly, the largest non nuke bomb ever dropped on earth was also thrown in, with little publicity
If I remember correctly, it triggered a series of shakes along a fault in the crust of the earth, of which long term consequences were not nown at the time
Please check the seismographers and compare with war bulletins, then you tell me.
I think we know no
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