Hello!

We in the US are so far afield from conditions in some foreign countries that we can't even begin to fathom what their lives are like. We are talking about India, Africa and so forth. Here millions of poor people live in filthy and wretched environments. Just having the governments taking care of the essentials in life darn near bankrupts them. Therefore, seismic safety isn't high on their list of priorities.

Now given this visualization, imagine you are a contractor and you have a family of ten and probably some few extra relatives who live with you in 500 square feet and you want to bid on a job that's going to keep feeding them. Do you think one would cut corners? You bet they will.

There's a saying, "until you've walked in my shoes, don't tell me what to do." We haven't lived in those conditions so how can we sit here and pass judgement on those people?

I just spent a year of my life having everyone telling me what I should be doing and it took months to figure out all of them were wrong. To each his own is the best way to live life. Also from the bible, "judge, not lest ye be judged."

Wanna do something to help those people? Can everyone afford $5 to start a fund? We could give it to Geo-Hazards in Palo Alto and let them help those who need it the most. Anyone game?

In closing, lets try to be a little less harsh on people and governments we know very little about. Afterall, just because we are the richest nation in the world, we shouldn't expect other people who have less to live up to our standards.

Oh, that just reminded me. I saw a PBS special about Alexandria (near Cairo) the other night where three groups of researchers were on the Nile delta trying to determine if Alexandria had a huge earthquake in the distant past. Sure enough they did. Now they say they feel what wasn't a threat before, will be so in the future.

2 cents from the Northbay....Petra