Thought of the Day: “It’s Time We Start Naming Earthquakes”

Do you know why everyone remembers hurricane Katrina? It wasn’t the human suffering, the billion dollars in property destruction or the spotlight it put on a befuddled administration. It was the name. You don’t even have to mention that it was a hurricane or where it hit. It’s sort of like the economy in that fashion. It’s just a name we can put on our problems. So why aren’t we naming earthquakes?

The closest we’ve come to this was the Northridge earthquake back in 1994, and that only half-way counted because nobody ever talks about Northridge in any other context except for the earthquake.

Wouldn’t it be much easier to be upset about Enrique than about the Haiti earthquake?

Of course the downfall with giving a human name to any natural disaster is the effect it would have on the poor bastards who also carry that name. Enriques all over the world would have to deal with people’s asinine comments whenever they introduced themselves. ”Yes, just like the Haiti earthquake,” or, “No, I did not cause 20,000 deaths…” People who shared names with earthquakes might have to start support groups like how there was a national support group for women named Monica after one of their ilk practically gave the name over to all manners of presidential fellating.