Alaska History Lesson: The Good Friday Earthquake

I was looking for some recent news about earthquakes, and I found the most fascinating information about the 50th anniversary of the Good Friday Earthquake in Alaska. Sometimes the web is a wonderland.

If you have some time this weekend, I highly recommend a documentary, Though the Earth Be Moved, of the first 72 hours after the earthquake. I couldn't get it to embed, but here is the link.

Here is a photo tour of Alaska after the earthquake.

Here are photos from the USGS Photographic Library and lots of additional information here.

Here is a fact sheet on Enduring Legacies. (It turns out that this earthquake helped prove a lot of theories about subduction zones and plate tectonics.)

Many films are available from the Alaska Film Archives.

And many more links can be found here.

All of this was fascinating, but it makes me glad I live in a state that doesn't have a lot of threats of natural disasters.




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Mascot Meditations

The other day at work:

Person 1: "I was an Eberwhite Tree."

Person 2: "I was a Huron River Rat."

Person 3: "That is the silliest mascot name."

Person 4 (Me): "I love that name!"

This is a garnet. Pretty, eh?
Mascot for my high school.
Photo courtesy of Glenn Klein under a
Creative Commons license. http://bit.ly/14vLZNb

I have always preferred mascot names that convey the sense of place, or that say--in some small way--we are unique, we have our own identity. As it happens, at my high school, our mascot was not a mascot at all. It was a garnet, a semi-precious stone. I was told that when the school was excavated, a large garnet--too big to move--was found in the basement. I don't know if that's the true story, but I always liked the image of the garnet in the basement. (There was a big rock that was left in the basement of my house growing up as well, which might be why I found the story believable.)




The sense of place is why I love the Eberwhite Tree mascot. After all, Eberwhite Woods is right there. It is why I was so disappointed at the choice of Eagles for Skyline.

I have loved the name the Willow Run Flyers, with the nod to Willow Run's history as a bomber plant and an airfield.

And although I can live with the new name of the Ypsilanti Community Schools Grizzlies (and I appreciate the feeling that they should pick a "new" name), the new school district is really rising from the ashes of the old, so wouldn't the Ypsilanti Phoenix be more appropriate? Or--even better--the Phoenix Flyers? Phoenixes do fly. . . at least in fantasy novels. Oh well.

In any case, the Huron High School web site has a lovely write-up about how the Huron student body became the River Rats--find it below.

MASCOTDuring 1967-68, a new Ann Arbor High School was being constructed and there was a problem. The school that was to be Huron did not yet have a mascot.

Before the school even opened, Ann Arbor High students who were not going to be relocated to Huron came up with the nickname "River Rat". They used the name as a joke to refer to their newly rivaled classmates who would attend a school built on the
Huron River and near an old medical waste site. But the Huron students turned the joke around, and they, too began referring to themselves with pride as River Rats.

One of the versions of the River Rats logo.
Found online at: a2schools.org

 Administration felt differently about their issue of the River Rat. Huron's first principal, Paul Meyers, had an especially strong dislike of rats after bad experiences with them as captain overseas during World War II. So the nickname was ignored for the most part, and when Huron's construction finally completed, "River Rat" did not appear to be in the running as mascot.

When Huron was opened in 1969, its mascot was intended to be the Huron. However, this mascot did not draw much enthusiasm or support from the students, and shortly after its opening, Huron had a write-in student ballot to determine a few choices for a possible alternative. Several of the more popular choices, including the Highlanders, the Hawks and the Indians, were put on a ballot during the student elections that year. The River Rat never made it to that ballot. 

However, none of the listed mascots could muster up fifty percent of the votes and student kept writing in "River Rat" instead of selecting a given choice on the ballot. Huron went several years without a mascot, during which time local newspapers started referring to Huron sports teams by the old nickname. Baseball players became Bat Rats and wrestlers became Mat Rats.It was the media that validated the name River Rats.
Over time, the name eventually stuck and became ingrained in Huron's history.

Taken from About Huron on the Ann Arbor Public Schools web site.

Landslides and Lakes: Geology, English, Hydrology

Warning: This post is not about Education. It is about my education, though.

I've been completely fascinated by a blog that Ed Vielmetti sent me to: Dave's Landslide Blog. I've been learning a tremendous amount about geology and geography (okay, I already knew a fair bit, but not about landslides). They seem to happen around the world nearly every day.

Right now there is a huge lake (at least 12 miles long and over 300 feet deep), growing daily, that was formed by a landslide in January. It is about to overflow any day now, with the possibility of a ginormous (I like that word) flood. Many villages have already flooded, more are about to be flooded. All in a part of Pakistan that I didn't even know about. And there are all sorts of politics going on in the area. The Pakistan-China road (Karkoram Highway) has been blocked and flooded. And if there is a disaster, it will be because the government didn't step up to the plate and prepare. Did I mention that the area is incredibly beautiful? Welcome to Gilgit-Baltistan, where the Attabad Lake has formed in the Hunza district. The lake is about to overtop tomorrow or the next day. How big will the flood be? I've been checking, practically hourly. (Picture taken from Dave's Landslide Blog.)

Another thing that is really interesting to me is the English of the Pakistani news sources--the English reads really differently from ours. Turn in to the Pamir Times to see what I mean. It reminds me of a debate I read about in one of my English classes, over whether there is, or should be, a single World English, or multiple World Englishes. Reading the Pakistani news sources, I lean toward Englishes.