It’s about that time again. That’s right, fundraiser time for KERA radio. Today they ran the Power Hour all morning until 1:00. Power Hours that go on for 9+ hours are Power Days. I’m really not looking forward to the fundraising all next week. It’ll make for some really quite days at work, since I almost exclusively listen to KERA, but tire quickly of pledge drive talk. Since I can’t really surf the web at work, and don’t watch TV news or read print newspapers, KERA is pretty much my sole source of news and events. (And in case you’re wondering, yes, I am a paying member). I do occasionally take a quick peak onto the NPR or KERA website for further elaboration on radio stories. I also consider them to be a pretty neutral news source; they seem to be pretty fair minded. Of course that may be my own personal bias. As my husband is fond of saying, NPR is too conservative for me. So, since it seems to me to express opinions both more conservative and liberal than mine, they must be unbiased, right?
So – we’ve all heard about all the earthquakes that seem to be breaking out all over the world lately. One is bound to wonder if we really are having an unusual outbreak of earthquakes, or if it’s just a result of the speed at which news travels in our new connected world. So I asked NPR. And I got my answer. Evidently we have had more earthquakes than one would normally expect to have happened in a four-month period, but not unusually so, well within the normal range of possibilities. In a year one would expect our earth to experience nearly 150 magnitude 6 – 7 earthquakes. Basically we’re getting earthquakes in more densely populated areas, causing more damage, and more to report on. I’ve copied the text from the brief article below:
From: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125991738
The magnitude 6.9 quake Wednesday hit southwest China’s Qinghai province, in a sparsely populated, mountainous area. Nearly 600 people were killed and thousands were injured or missing. While it marks yet another high-profile, destructive quake this year, scientists say these quakes aren’t above average in strength or frequency. Unfortunately, they just seem to be striking more populated areas.
Scientists have analyzed this year’s high-magnitude earthquakes — in Haiti, Chile, Mexico, Indonesia and elsewhere — looking for any unusual patterns. So far, they’ve found none.
“We’ve had six [magnitude 7 earthquakes] this year, and that’s within the range of variation we expect,” says Andrew Michael, a researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif.
Earthquakes are actually pretty common; the USGS estimates that several million quakes strike the Earth each year. But many go undetected because they hit remote areas or have very small magnitudes. It’s the ones that hit more populated areas — like many of this year’s big quakes — that get lots of attention. But even those aren’t uncommon.
On average, there are 17 magnitude 7 quakes around the world each year, and an additional 130 in the magnitude 6 range. That would be one quake every 2 1/2 days if they fell evenly spread on the calendar. So while this year’s spate of seismic activity actually isn’t out of the ordinary, the USGS researcher in California analyzed the data, running various models comparing this year’s high-magnitude quakes with the previous 100 years.
“It’s definitely more than most four-month periods, but things are not always exactly at the average,” Michael says. “This is within what we expect variations to be from random models of earthquake occurrence.”
And what’s happened so far this year is no indicator of what’s to come, he says. “It doesn’t tell us more about the future any more than [the idea that] if someone wins the lottery, you should go to the same store and buy a ticket there.”
What might be easier to predict these days is which areas are most at risk of devastation if — or when — an earthquake does strike.
“What really worries seismologists is that the rapid urbanization of a lot of the world is clustering people together in poorly constructed buildings,” Michael says. “There are a lot of improvised buildings being built, not engineered, creating a very vulnerable situation.”
That’s evident in early reports from the scene of Wednesday’s quake in China: In Yushu town, for example, 85 percent of the buildings — many made of mud and wood — reportedly had collapsed.
So there you go: Lots of earthquakes where lots of people live and work in shoddy buildings leads to lots of news stories.
So while I do get my news from KERA/NPR, I think I get most of it on accident and through osmosis, I mostly listen to it for entertainment value. What got me listening to KERA to begin with was “Everything you ever wanted to know.” It’s a Friday call in show, where people from the metroplex call in, ask questions, and other folks call in with answers. It’s on every Friday during lunch. I used to spend my lunches sitting in my car listening to the show and eating fast food. Now I listen and eat at my desk most of the time. Fridays really are my favorite days for the KERA radio shows. After “Everything…” is Way With Words. On this show people call or write in about their question related to word usage, grammar, pronunciation, origin, or anything to do with the English language. Today someone called in to get clarification between supposedly and supposably. My first thought (also confirmed by my spell checker) is that supposably isn’t even a word, it’s just a mispronunciation of supposedly. But it is in fact the adverb of supposable. However, it’s almost never used correctly. According to Grant Barrett (one of hosts of the show), supposably is far more theoretical and philosophical than supposedly, but still a valid word.
The best call in today though, was a man calling about a story his friend in Canada had told him. His friend had come home to find a “moose” in his kitchen. When asked what he did about the animal in his kitchen, the friend said he took a broom and swept it into a paper bag and threw it out. The man said, “Oh, you had a mouse in your house?” “That’s what I said,” the friend replied. “I had a moose in my hoose.”