What Chicago is talking about this week:
The triple disaster in Japan (an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown or two -- what is this, a Bruckheimer film?) is on the minds of many (and not just those in Arlington Heights, which apparently has the largest concentration of Japanese in the environs).
My personal and direct exposure to natural disasters is somewhat limited -- I watched the Blizzard of 2011 in Chicago from my apartment window; I experienced my first "real" earthquake last Easter in the Palm Desert of California (the minor tremblers in Lebanon and Harrisburg of my youth don't count); I was much too young (and just outside of the immediate evacuation zone) when it comes to Three Mile Island's meltdown (and I guess that would be a manmade disaster after all) and I hadn't even had a birthday when Hurricane Agnes flooded so much of Pennsylvania.
Sure I've lived through some pretty violent storms in my time and experienced some remnants of hurricanes before -- and I've driven across PA even after they've closed the turnpike during a snowstorm and slid my car down the road at LVC during a pretty nasty ice storm. I've even driven past the intersection of 501 and 322 in Brickerville to look at the path of a Lancaster County tornado in my youth.
But none of that makes me understand the tragedy unfolding overseas. I'm sure the celebrity fundraising concert is being planned ... but, in the meantime, Red Cross is a reputable place to make a donation -- and prayers for those affected are free.
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS:
http://www.redcross.org/
BEFORE ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, THERE WAS A NISEITOWN 'HOOD HERE:
http://www.examiner.com/ethnic-community-in-chicago/chicago-s-lost-ethnic-neighborhoods-niseitown
MY EARTHQUAKE EXPERIENCE WAS A 7.2:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/us/05quake.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
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