Tuesday, March 15, 2011

ides

The ides of March have come, and things are much worse for the world today than they were for Ceasar. Who really cares about Ceasar at this point. Still, given the nuclear crisis in Japan, this old literary reference is certainly getting a new chance at relevance and householdnamedom. Germany shut seven nuclear reactors for review.

I was thinking, what if all of Japan was rendered unliveable? Would there be a place in the world to re-settle the 127 million beleaguered Japanese? They certainly have emerged in all this as very humane and organized. Not one looting as far as I heard.

Anyway, I looked up 'ides' and it means the 'middle of a Roman month,' but the 15th of March is not the middle. There are 14 days before it and 16 after it. Let us hope tomorrow the situation does not deteriorate further.

And now for my daily grumble, from Yahoo! News, again:
"Japan Faces Radiation Catastrophe Threat"
I guess it's not technically wrong, but it sounds awkward. Does Japan face the actual catastrophe or the threat? I think what they want to say is the "threat of catastrophe." Being in news myself, I'd like to believe there just wasn't room for that "of..."

3 comments:

ArtSparker said...

Woke up early this A.M., wondering about the same thing. There is, as far as I can see, no relevance to deserving or not deserving in the way things work out. But if there were, Jeez, the Japanese have just been working hard for the last 60 years, not invading other peoples' countries etc.

Kathleen said...

I am amazed and impressed by the general calm of the Japanese in the face of all this. I am glad Germany closed these reactors. Good reaction.

ArtSparker said...

This is somewhat reassuring, if the [erson quoted is knowledgeable.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/03/no-chernobyl.html

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