This is What an Earthquake Is

The first thing I remember was the force. The same force you feel when you're zooming down the incline of a roller coaster.

It was 16 years ago this morning that a 6.4 earthquake hit the San Fernando Valley on a previously unknown fault. We all went from being Valley Boys and Valley Girls to being earthquake survivors.

It was around 4:30 in the morning and with the world shaking around me, that force was so great that I couldn't get out of bed.

All my life as a So Cal kid, I was trained to find a table and get under it. But I couldn't even get out of bed as the G-force produced by the quake kept me in bed. The most I could do was put the pillow over my head and wait for it to end.

When it was over, I remember the darkness. No power on a new moon twilight.

I immediately reached for the door to my bedroom, and it wouldn't open. With it completely dark and no idea what your surroundings looked like, I wondered... was I trapped? Had everything collapsed around me? Was the world still there?

Then I realized..... My bed was blocking the door.

Then I realized, I shouldn't be able to reach for the door from my bed. It had been on the other side of the room. The bed, with me in it, had traveled from one side of the room to the other, and it wasn't on wheels.

That is what an Earthquake is.

For perspective, the quake in Haiti was about six times more powerful with infrastructure dozens of times less strong.

There are still lives to be saved in Haiti. Text "Haiti" to 90999 and contribute $10 to relief efforts.

This is Our Greatness

Like a prideful lion atop the highest point of the prairie, we as Americans always like to boast how great we are.

And we have plenty of reason to, though many have misplaced where that greatness truly lies.

Anyone who doubts America’s greatness had less reason to after the actions of a majority of its people and government this week. In the face of unfathomable disaster by their neighbor Haiti, Americans have answered the cries for aid quicker than the needle moved on the seismograph during the 7.0 earthquake.

In just two days, the American Red Cross has raised more than $7 million off nothing more than folks sending a single text pledge of $10 each. Planes filled with aid have overloaded the Port-au-Prince airport, and the capital city’s port would have been the same if not for it being destroyed in the quake. Save for a few nuts and their dittoheads, seemingly every American – from the Kindergartner holding a lemonade sale to office workers pooling donations – has wanted to help the people of Haiti.

This is our greatness.

There are some who will tell you that our greatness comes from our might. From bombs and guns, and from forceful words and actions.

That is not the reason the world looks up to America. Our greatness comes from our generosity. From giving aid and a helping hand. From answering a call for help and acting as the shining beacon that leads the world to a better place.

This may not seem like the best time to give ourselves a pat on the back. Just a few hundred miles to the south, there are still people buried under crumble concrete hoping for some ray of sunshine to lead them back to life.

But pointing out our greatness is needed when there are still those among us who don’t realize what makes America great.

There are those who say we are better as a nation to simply ignore the cries of Haiti. That we’ve already sent enough of our money down there. That we should just worry about ourselves. For that reason, it’s important to cry out that it is not American or patriotic to be selfish.

There is a minority that would rather spend billions to blow up Iraq than spend millions to save Haiti. But the world doesn’t admire America for Hiroshima or its nuclear arsenal. It admires us for the Marshall Plan and the Berlin Air Lift.

When America seemed to forget that for much of the last decade, the world’s view of America declined. Each piece of candy passed from one of our brave soldiers to a child in Baghdad did more to rebuild the country than the bombing of a Baghdad building.

There are also those who use religion to claim the Haitians had it coming. But the greatness of the world’s religions comes not from them being perverted to justify hatred and evil. It is from the teachings of Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, Hinduism - and seemingly all religions - that say the same thing: Good will to all men, and love thy neighbor.

This is our greatness.

Let our beacon of hope continue to shine. Text “Haiti” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts.

Bra Beating a Message

It took a while for a lot of us to catch on to what the whole one-color thing was on Twitter and Facebook. Especially for us macho males.

Were people giving alternate colors for “Avatar” aliens? Were they describing their favorite Power Ranger?

In the end, the colors were far more important trivial. They were part of a homegrown, out-of-nowhere viral campaign to draw awareness to researching and preventing the scourge of breast cancer. And it was simply by announcing what color bra you were wearing.

Whether it was from the mind of one or from a collective mind, it was brilliant.

There has been some criticism of the campaign - from claims it puts ambiguity on a serious issue, to not leading the reader to action.

Perhaps the most concerning criticisms have come from breast cancer victims themselves, including an excellent piece from survivor Susan Niebur, who say the bra meme has done nothing more than dredge up the nightmare they experienced for the amusement of others.

I have all the sympathy in the world for Niebur and anyone who has gone through this ticking time-bomb. And she is correct that this one-word-color campaign may be a stark reminder for those who have had to suffer with it. But this campaign was targeted for those who don't know Susan's story. Those who think it can't be me or can't be someone they love.

As someone who's been a part of several viral marketing campaigns in the past, this was one of the most effective I've seen... And it went to a good cause instead of getting people to eat a burger, invest in a company or go to a resort.

Do you think we would have been talking about breast cancer today without it? Did you know Susan Niebur’s story until today?

I live every day with the fact my wife is in a demographic that has a high chance of getting breast cancer. Having seen others I've liked and loved go down with forms of cancer, I dread this possibility and hope she never has to suffer through it. That may end up being niece, but I do know she, and others, can prevent it.

If just one person sends a buck to the American Cancer Society, joins one of the many breast cancer walks around the nation or gets a mammogram that finds a tumor early after catching on to what those colors, then this is one virus worth spreading.