Dear Dr. Vidale,
Your stats might have gone over my head but they also would have bored readers. It doesn't make interesting copy. The bottom line: You don't validate Mr. Berkland's theories. And that's fine. I did catch that...(Didn't I include you in the Chapter "High Science vs. Four-Leggers"?)

I wrote "The Man Who Predicts Earthquakes," for a mass audience. I want the 10-year-old kid, twentysomething single mom, baby boomer, and senior guy with a dog to get it. I want everyone from CA to Japan to get the fact: "Don't Be Scared--Be Prepared!" Numbers are not going to help people today or tomorrow.

It's human nature to be forget. After the Loma Prieta monster quake, NoCA and prob SoCA folks all got our first aid kits together, stocked up food, you know the drill. But as time passed, we pinched our emergency supplies and put off preparedness. We forgot about the freeway collapsing, the lives that were lost. And the funny thing is, that jolt wasn't even the big one.

The fact is, statistics bore most people. Actually, Mr. Berkland wanted me to include many more of his scientific charts. I refused. It was a pain to input Roger Hunter's charts, again and again. Statistical typing is not fun to input, I'm sure it's worse to read. It is b-o-r-i-n-g to read numbers.

What's more, chatting about minute measurements of tidal levels do not save lives. Getting your butt in gear, getting prepared (even it's learning to duck and cover under a sturdy table rather than a doorway)is what is going to keep you alive--not crunching numbers. I feel the chapter, "Where Are the Quake Warnings?" is more interesting than discussing statistics. But hey, I'm just a starving journalist who majored in English (creative writing)--what do I know?

Cal