timberlandko wrote:If any silver lining is here, it would be the potential for opening dialogue between Iran and The US. I hope that proves fruitful ... for all concerned.
Actually, I think that helping the people is much more important any thoughts of a maybe opening of the dialogue between the USa and Iran.
I personally think it to be inhuman to regard the opening of such a dialogue as "silver lining" faced with probably 50,000 dead people and hundredthousands waiting for/needing our help.
Now, Walter, I think your comment betrays an irrational Anti-US bias. The victims of the earthquake, dead, injured, and homeless, are of course a tragedy of near Biblical proportion. Certainly, all practical help should be, and is being, directed to ameliorating the effects of the disaster. Should improved Iranian dialogue with The West, not just The US, result, the socio-economic benefit to The Iranian People will be immense. Stabilization, and democratization, of the entire region will be served. The direct beneficiaries would be the impoverished, oppressed, disenfranchised, and desperate people of The Middle East, far more so than any Western concern, US or otherwise. Other than that in the eyes of some it would serve neither to inconvenience nor discredit The US, what's bad about that ... that some overall good might follow in the wake of tragedy?
No, timber. I do think, too, that an improving dialogue will be good for everyone.
But thinking actually NOW and two lines below your own quotation ot it ...
I was non-plussed on that response, too. Maybe, Walter, you don't exactly understand the 'silver lining' reference... Something good that can emerge from something bad. It doesn't allude to the good being worth the bad. In this case, I don't think anyone would say the earthquake was worth any good derived.
'Silver lining' is nearly the same (translated) in German.
I'm stumped.
If any passer-by can explain why it is inhuman to hope for a silver lining, please do. This is making me want a cigarette.
Can't help, Sofia.
I just think it is inhuman to refer so close to nealry 50,000 dead persons to politics.
(And I'm more than sure that other of my personal opposnions let want you to smole again, too. I confess, however, that none controversary personal opinion of others had ever let me think of drinking again.)
It wasn't your opinion, Walter, that was pressing my Smoke button. It was my loss to understand it. I understand it now.
I found this buried in the story about the 97-year old woman's rescue.
I had no idea.
This is about the same percentage of Americans who are alcoholics.
It seems that humans, regardless of nation or religion, have much in common.
Quote:"Farojpour said that among the many things disrupted by the quake was the supply of opium to the city's addicts. Before the temblor, an estimated 20 percent of people over the age of 15 in a population of 80,000 were believed to be addicted.
Methadone, codeine and sterile syringes were being given to drug addicts, Farojpour said."
Yahoo!
Another man found alive, thirteen days after the quake.
I hope this will impress those so quick to give up digging--not to in the future. Sad that it seems to be only five that made it past the quake.
I'm astounded someone could last so long. I hope he makes it. Apparently he was found inside a wardrobe/armoire, but still being in such a cramped compartment wouldn't be pleasant. I'm glad they've found him. Perhaps more will be found.
One can only hope.
