Nature Can Kick Your Ass

As an avid fan of National Geographic tornado footage, I feel relatively well-acquainted with the idea that the natural world can make life very crappy for people (even for those not residing in trailer parks). However, every once in a while the earth will do something so drastic that people might even stop caring about who the next Apprentice is (it was Kelly, by the way!!!). Take, for instance, the recent tsunamis (don't call them "tidal waves") down in Asia. The most sobering thing to me was not that 100,000+ people died in the space of a couple hours, although that is certainly horrible. No, what really brought home our own piddling insignificance was that the earthquake that triggered the tsunamis also moved the island of Sumatra 100 feet to the southwest. Let me repeat, the quake moved...the...entire...island. And just how big is Sumatra? The island is only a little bigger than California, but I'm sure most Americans knew that.