Simon Winchester

[Bas]

I was listening to an interview with Simon Winchester, author of "Krakatoa" and "A crack in the edge of the world", in which he reported his puzzlement about the following. Despite the fact that the San Andreas fault is very much overdue for a major tectonic upheaval, people continue to make San Fransisco their home. Despite the fact that Bande Aceh in Indonesia is still very much in the same area of tsunami danger, people continue to rebuild exactly on the same spot. San Fransiscans do not like what Simon and geologists have to say - they "want a 4 hour earthquake warning from geologists - for all else, leave us alone".

This part of the interview struck a chord with me: it seems eerily similar to the adherence of many in our PT community to well-entrenched, but flawed principles of care. I can not say that San Fransiscans are stupid as a rule; neither are PTs. But, in this aspect, surprisingly and dangerously stubborn.
The "Crack in the edge" seems a good read...

[Diane]

Sounds like it would be a topic for Michael Shermer, "Why People Believe in Weird Things" ..i.e, that somehow they'll be spared by an earthquake. The Passionate Eye dissected the Katrina event, including all the meteorology/sociology surrounding it, and the tsunami last year, and the tornado in Edmonton 20 years ago.. all different programs, all weather/nature related, all riveting. All these dedicated weather people, explaining (and sobbing at the "failure" of.. ) their attempts to warn everyone, (in particular the hurricane, which built for days.. long lead time.) There was a few hours long window for the tsunami, but only seconds for the tornado.

Here in Vancouver, this past weekend we had winds, which is rare.. and the winds themselves are nothing, well under a hundred k, but what's dangerous, especially for those who persist in living on 45 degree slopes in a rain forest, is that the trees are a) huge, and b) have little or no root systems, d) the ground is always damp and soft, and d) a small fringe of pretty trees are left standing around homes and new developments while all the actual "forest" is removed, making in much easier for the wind to blow the remaining trees right up out of the ground and onto the nice new expensive homes. DUH!!

In the Tipping Point, Gladwell explains awfully clearly how random events remain random, how catastrophic events remain unpredictable, i.e. earthquakes in particular.

Back to PT, it might just take something like an earthhquake to rouse the profession out of its deepening coma of consciousness/conscience. If it isn't busy mobilipulating some bone (and thinking that that is what's happening because that's the imaging-ation in their head) they're off imaging-ating they are bending fascia into new friendlier configurations, Cartesian forever.

[nari]

John Gribbin in his Deep Simplicity also talks about the randomness of nature, but looking inside his text, this randomness has a kind of order to it. It's just when we get caught up in a random event, it can be catastrophic for us, but it really is just a bit of therapy going on - releasing tension, fiery burping, moving around....after all, those durn tectonic plates can't stay immobilised forever...and we are primarily fleas that have invaded this territory of housekeeping.

There are a lot of places 'overdue' for a good spring clean: San Francisco, LA, Tokyo, Yellowstone (bigger than Krakatau), Tambora, and about five others.
I guess people just want to stay put, in the hope that it doesn't happen.
I don't think they will be pouring out of Kansas and Florida before the next series of stormy weather events begin..

Physical therapy is overdue for a spring clean...way overdue. There have been patches of cleaning up done, thanks to folk like Shacklock, Butler, Moseley, et al, but there are many years of cobwebs and certainly a lot of memes to scrub out....heck of a job.:)


Nari

[Diane]

Physical therapy is overdue for a spring clean...way overdue. There have been patches of cleaning up done, thanks to folk like Shacklock, Butler, Moseley, et al, but there are many years of cobwebs and certainly a lot of memes to scrub out....heck of a job. Agree! And if we each did our own small part to keep our own mental patch of memes clean and updated and retrofitted, the whole profession would be better off.