The New York Times discusses one of the schools that toppled in China's quake. Reading it is heartbreaking: parents shouldn't have to endure their children's deaths.

And yet, and yet . . . a 7.9 earthquake is not a manageable thing under any circumstances. A 7.9 is mass death, no matter what. The Northridge quake was a motherfucker that hit the San Fernando Valley hard—and brick buildings miles away—an entire mountain range away—in Santa Monica nearly as hard.

You'll recall that the Richter scale is counter-intuitive. It is not normal, linear deal. (What is the terminology I'm looking for? Not arithmatic, but something-or-other? Not thingamajig, but doohickey? Doesn't progress like a thermometer, but spikes more and more with each point? Help a sister out.)

So, yeah: I do want to cut my own heart out after reading the NYT article, and a sic-year-old building should be reasonably safe, but I have some essay questions nonetheless. For instance:

(1) How many children were lost in the average American family two generations ago? How about in China one generation ago? Is child mortality going down in China, or up?

(2) Has the carnage in China's schools as a result of the quake altered the average Chinese perspective on the one-child-per-household policy? Or didn't the writers at The New York Times ask about that?

(3) How has the widespread availability of education changed Chinese life over the last 30 years? As your eye doctor would say: is it better, or worse?

(4) Which country has worse building codes: China, or Mexico? China, or India? China, or the Philippines? China, or South Korea? China, or North Korea?

That is, I see that rural schools in China might not be up to the standards we expect, here in the richest country in the history of mankind. But how do things look from a broader historical or geographical perspective?

In short, there was a lot of data in the NYT piece. But not a lot of information.

h/t: Memeorandum.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 06:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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