Yesterday, rock shifted 3.7 miles beneath the earth's crust, causing buildings to shake and rattle. We normally don't feel earthquakes in Northern Virginia, but we certainly felt this one, which started in Southern Virginia and worked its way up the East Coast and Canada.
Viewing the television coverage later, I was happy to see there was relatively very little damage caused by this quake. According the the
USGS.gov site, its magnitude was rated at 5.8.
In places around the area, a few buildings have been condemned, a spire toppled, chimneys crumbled, glass crunched, but it could have been worse. One of the reasons that the quake didn't cause more damage is good architectural practices and work ethic.
As we were making our way out of the building yesterday, it did cross my mind that we were fortunate that our building stood strong. But if the ethical malaise that is gripping our citizens continues, a natural disaster might lead to bigger disaster.
There is considerable cost when people use
substandard building materials or cut corners by
using defective material, or
performing shoddy work. Without well-built buildings, yesterday's quake could have caused a building or two to come crashing down, and lives could be lost.
And while the
"FMI/CMAA Survey of Construction Industry Ethical Practices" is about the importance of ethics in the building industry, it's just as important in all other fields.
Let's re-evaluate our behavior. Cheating here and skimping there has a cumulative effect, so before we experience other natural disasters -- including possible man-made disaster -- let's band together to help promote good ethical practices.
Comments:
Let’s see…Lee would not jump threads, be uncharitable, exempt a Christian legalist from a third-degree examination of his/her conception of grace, fail to read the Complete Works of Jane Austen in two weeks (oops, scratch that), let Ben W go quietly into the night of neo-Darwinism, or suffer any unkind or unfair criticism of BreakPoint staffers to stand unchallenged. He also would not neglect the slightest opportunity to attempt to outpun a brother whose apparent sole distinction in life is the ability to amaze Guinness staffers by continually breaking record lows on the Richter scale of “humor”.
Jason, on the other hand, would not assert anything without six levels of nested footnotes documenting the historical significance of everything from Frank Herbert’s arcane allusions to Alfred’s burnt cakes in recently-unearthed manuscripts of the Kalevala, to the TARDIS-Peshawar-Scipio Africanus connection in the lectures of Victor Davis Hanson on Kurdistani warcraft. Neither would he pass up any occasion to perorate on the glories of coffee.
That doesn’t leave very much.
I guess I could remark what a great bunch of people hang out here on both sides of the editor’s desk.
Nope, that won’t work either.
The only other thing I can think of is enjoying perfectly-grilled Elk steaks and fresh-dug Idaho baked potatoes. Ok if ducks fly west for the winter, Ellen? There might be a cigar in it for you, and you don’t even have to inhale.
:)
The worst we get here is a wind storm or an avalanche. I'm pretty sure the avalanche danger is quite low at our house in August, and our recently rebuilt deck and added pergola won't buckle in bad wind. The aging Aspen trees could be a problem... but that's not due to poor work ethic.
And speaking of which, I'm outta here - on vacation until just after (drumroll) Labor Day. (bada-bing!) While I'm away, don't do anything I wouldn't do. Hmmm - maybe you should aim higher than that...
Aside to "Abigail": I know your periodic hostility toward me, and that you reside up North. I'll be vacationing in the (almost deep) South, to avoid your North anger, Abby. And I'll enjoy it right through to its conclusion. (I think I'd read more novels if I took more time away from work.)
But the way I heard it, when the earthquake hit, irrespective of what they may have said, all three of those guys, being East- rather than West-coasters, were laying bricks.
Actually, in defense of my much-maligned East Coast friends who thought sure they heard a trumpet sound right before earth began shaking, let me remind everyone that not 100 miles from where I sit there was in 1886 a 7.3 magnitude earthquake that nearly leveled the city of Charleston, SC.
So, on balance, humph. We to the right of the Mississippi had earthquakes – and hurricanes – before they were cool.
As the building I was in was shaking, I recalled that Federal contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, and Esther's shrug of "If I perish, I perish" sprang to mind. I also thought about the three bricklayers who were interviewed while working. When asked what they were doing, one snapped back "I'm laying bricks!", the second said "I'm making $X per hour" and the third said "I'm building a cathedral, for the glory of God, where His people may gather and worship Him." That attitude and that vision are things that increased regulation of construction contractors cannot instill in the heart of a worker.