Lessons of the Tsunami.

[KlatooBNikto]

The greatest lesson of the tsunami was how fragile our life on this planet is and how easily it can be snuffed out by natural forces.

The second lesson is how interconnected we all are in life and death. To ignore our neighbors' plight is to invite disaster into our own lives.

The third, is that wealth, beauty, arrogance, inflated egos, division by race, religion and nationality are bunk. They are all perishable commodities.Only by seeking out the goodness in each of us can we ensure the survival of our species.

Would that we had moral leaders to address these issues.

[Historic NY]

1. Excellent observation.........the world is indeed a small place...n/t

[Joe Chi Minh]

2. Not so much a lesson

as a reminder - that the grotesque precedence given to the right side of our brain, which our materialist, worldly leaders seek to laud at the expense of the intuitive, left side, has been highlighted yet again in all its infantile inadequacy by the behaviour of animals: this time, in Sri lanka.

The following item (a little abridged here), written by a Gary Moug, appeared in today's Scottish newspaper, the Sunday Post:

"Did animals sense the coming danger?

WHERE ARE all the dead animals? that's one of the questions being asked in Sri Lanka after stunned wildlife officials revealed that, despite the worst tsunami in living memory, they can't find any evidence of dead animals.

Giant waves washed floodwaters up to 3km inland at Yala Nationa Park in the ravaged south-east, Sri Lanka's biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of animals, including elephants, leopards, monkeys, wild boars and water buffalo.

More than 25000 people are thought to have died in the country, but H D Ratnayake, deputy director of the Deprtmentt of Wildlife Conservation Sri Lanka, said it appeared the animals had sensed danger and headed to safety.

"The strange thing is we haven't recorded any dead animals", he said. No elephants are dead, not even a dead hare or rabbit.

"I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are going to happen.

Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, who runs a hotel in the park, said, "I am finding bodies of humans, but I have yet to see a dead animal.

Wildlife officials are now convinced that animals sensed the Indian Ocean tsunami and fled to higher ground to avoid death.

{snip}

There have been instances in the past of cats going into hiding up to 12 hours before earthquakes, while dogs have been known to bark frantically shortly before they struck".

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When we lived in NZ, dubbed by the Ozzies "the Shaky Isles", because of their innumerable earth tremors/quakes, my mother used to get a headache before a tremor. And I think it was a commonplace that pets behaved in a peculiar way. I should think there would be innumerable tales of such reactions to impending earth tremors/quakes in California.

I wonder what nexus of coincidences brought about that sixth sense in creation and evolution.