I would like to take a moment to inform you of an experiment many of us can and should participate in which has to potential to greatly enhance our lives and aid in our prediction of earthquakes. The experiment will take place on Monday, April 26th, and carries the official title of “Boobquake.” The recent spate of earthquakes around the world is what prompted the study, that and an Islamic Cleric from Iran, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi who blamed these recent earthquakes on exposed flesh of the human female. To the experiment’s lead investigator, Jennifer McCreight, this sounded like a testable hypothesis. Participation is simple. If earthquakes are caused by cleavage, providing an abundance of cleavage should produce an abundance of earthquakes, and the date to test this is Monday, the 26th. You can see the facebook event listing at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=116336578385346.
Now you might be thinking this particular cleric is off his rocker, that linking singular seemingly natural events in random parts of the world to certain ongoing and omnipresent morally questionable to some behaviors seems daft, but this sort of accusation is often offered by leaders of several faiths, well, usually just very conservative and vocal parts of faiths, but what’s wrong with a little generalization here, right?
There is a colorful history to such divinations, from Fred Phelps displacing his hate of homosexuality to his deity and blaming everything from natural disasters and wars to the wrath of the good and peaceful god, to Pat Robertson (who was feeling quite aware of having faded from the public spotlight) blaming Haiti’s earthquake on the deal Haitians supposedly cut with the devil in their revolution. In this case, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “It never ceases to amaze, that in times of amazing human suffering, somebody says something that could be so utterly stupid. But it, like clockwork, happens with some regularity.” Now the White House is bound by certain rules of etiquette, and so if they call you stupid, you know you’re far from rational discourse. Since then, earthquakes have struck Chile, Baja California, China, Indonesia, and hell, even very near me in Illinois. Yes, a better study might be put on attention seekers getting headlines in the wake of a natural disaster, but I’m not sure that would be science as much as statistics. I prefer science, particular the science of boobs.
There are some significant instances of this we might study in preparation for Monday’s experiment. My favorite, I think is Hurricane Katrina for it’s butterfly effect through history. Hurricane Katrina hit the week after the gay pride parade in New Orleans, and therefore, it was a wicked weekend in a wicked city. The accusations began even before the storm hit, before the levees broke. Fred Phelps, from his church in Kansas (which for some reason never gets a hurricane, and he never seems to blame tornadoes on gays) blamed the storm on the parade. So did Pastor John Hagee from San Antonio, Texas. Their predictions seemed focused on God wiping out the French Quarter, for its sinful ways. Of course, some people rode it out in the bars in the French Quarter, and it being high ground, and even as close to the river and coast as it is, it hardly received any damage. On the other hand, the low lying areas were, as we know, destroyed, areas full of churches and faithful. Hm, something wasn’t adding up, no matter how much the conservative preachers proclaimed God’s victory over sin.
Within weeks, hurricane Rita was bearing on New Orleans, a lesser storm, but anything at that point would have been a second major disaster, and the preachers were back at it, proclaiming God was finishing off his work in New Orleans, which apparently an All Mighty God couldn’t wipe out a city in one try, but that’s beside the point. Funny thing, though, the storm turned away from New Orleans and moved on to Houston. It was as if some Storm creating deity was angered by the things somebody nearby was proclaiming in His name.
But Katrina’s influence wasn’t over yet. If one hurricane is God’s hand at work on earth, then all surely must be. As an aside, isn’t it funny how hurricanes only hit the same areas of the world, despite them being in the bible belt while the rest of the world goes on sinning? Anyway, as that hatefest we know as the Republican 2008 Presidential Campaign was having it’s crowning event, on the opening night of the Republican National Convention, Hurricane Gustav was coming ashore near New Orleans, as if to remind us all how horribly the relief was handled by the Conservative Religious President of the party in power. It was as if a deity were up there going, “Stop putting words in my mouth, you don’t know what I have to say.”
Which makes me wonder what Iceland did to deserve the volcano eruption of the past week. It’s too cold most of the time to show boobs, and aside from inflicting Bjork on the rest of us and being not particularly good at banking of late, Icelanders seem a pretty innocuous bunch.
So, boobs. Monday. Though, it occurs to me that Monday might not be enough evidence to reach a conclusive result. We should maybe make this experiment happen at least once a year, just so that we have a sufficient data set, or maybe quarterly. Can I get a grant to pursue this?