The Next Big One Could Come Any Minute Now

Some people say that California really isn’t so bad, despite its faults. Ok, sorry about the bad pun, but those kinds of faults exist in the Midwest, too, including Indiana. Another thing they say about faults is that they are like people; they keep building up stress until, eventually, they snap.

That snap can be felt as an earthquake. And, like with people under stress, the longer a fault goes without snapping, the bigger the resulting earthquake will be.

Geologists have recently concluded that the part of the San Andreas Fault that runs through Southern California, including Palm Springs and Los Angeles, has built up about 300 years of stress. That means it could let go any minute now. The average time between major quakes in that region is 250 years.

Actually, the exact prediction is that there is a 70 percent chance of a major earthquake sometime during the next 30 years. Predicting earthquakes is far less accurate than predicting the weather, which is still not too exact going beyond tomorrow.

It still makes me glad I don’t live in California, though. In Indiana, we have tornadoes. But one can go an entire lifetime without ever seeing a twister. In fact, most people in Indiana live out their lives without seeing one up close and personal.

But in California, no one escapes earthquakes. They have relatively minor quakes all the time, and most people get used to them. But a major earthquake along the San Andreas Fault will happen. That’s a certainty.

In a sense it’s like being able to predict that a tornado will definitely hit downtown Franklin. We just don’t know exactly when but there’s a 70 percent chance it will be within 30 years.

The odds that a tornado will actually hit downtown Franklin are nowhere near that great. Yet, it could happen, and that fact is what Midwesterners learn to live with.

But, since I’m talking odds, it might surprise you to know that the odds that a major earthquake will strike Southern Indiana are greater than the odds of a twister striking any single place over the same time period.

Seismologists, the people who study and try to predict earthquakes, say that when the San Andreas Fault does finally slip, the resulting earthquake will be at least an eight on the Richter scale. It would be devastating.

But the largest quake ever to hit the United States occurred in December, 1811. Its aftershocks continued into the following year. And, no, it was not in California. The epicenter was near the town of New Madrid, Mo. And it was felt throughout much of the Midwest, including Indiana.

Fault lines in the New Madrid system of faults run along the Mississippi and Ohio River basins. Earthquakes large enough to be felt are rare in these parts, but they do happen.

There was a noticeable trembler that occurred in 1968. It was during the presidential campaign and one of the local newspapers quipped, “Nixon said he had some earth-shaking ideas, but this is ridiculous.”

In the mid-1980s, I was sitting on the deck of my home in Hobart, where I lived at the time. I thought I felt something, as if I were in a boat. I looked at the kids’ swing set and noticed the swing had begun to oscillate. I checked the news and it was, indeed, an earthquake.

But those were small earthquakes. We’re all waiting for “the big one” to strike California. And, indeed, it may strike at any time. But an equally big one could strike anywhere between Memphis and Evansville. And as difficult as it is to predict earthquakes in California, earthquakes in the Midwest are even more mercurial.

After all, the last big one to strike the Midwest changed the course of the Mississippi River and sent coal hurling skyward from fissures that opened in the earth. And that was long before Hollywood invented such scenarios.

Bush's Education Policy Not Working

It has now been five years since this country implemented Pres. Bush’s education policy of No Child Left Behind. The goal of the program is for all children in all social classes, of every race and at every school to improve in the target areas of math and reading each year. All schools are to have reached their target goal by 2014.

So how have schools been doing over the last five years? Are they on their way to meeting that challenge? Are students showing adequate yearly progress, as the program mandates?

The Bush administration claims that the educational divide that exists between whites and minorities is closing and that students are beginning to improve in both targeted areas.

But a recent Harvard University study disagrees. Using the federal government's National Assessment of Educational Progress test, generally considered to be the most accurate indicator of student achievement, the Harvard study found absolutely no improvement in reading scores since 2001. There was some improvement in math scores, but the improvement was at the same rate as was occurring prior to 2001. So, again, the No Child Left Behind Act seems to have had little if any effect on improving students’ progress.

The latest Harvard study agrees with last year’s conclusions of the Great Lakes Center for Educational Research, which commissioned a study of states in the Great Lakes region. According to that study, anywhere between 55 percent and 85 percent of Indiana’s schools will fail to meet the adequate yearly progress goals of No Child Left Behind by 2014. As bad as those figures are, they are still better than the prediction for some other Midwestern states.

Currently, only 67 percent of high school students graduate. Only 50 percent of black and Hispanic students complete school. The No Child Left Behind Act was supposed to provide a nationwide set of standards for all students and, therefore, close the gap between whites and minorities. That is not happening.

There is nothing wrong with the goal. But the program suffers from poor implementation, inadequate funding, and an urealistic interpretation of educational processes. It puts far too much burden on teachers and administrators to control variables that are largely out of their reach.

All across the country students who come from poor families or from economically disadvantaged neighborhoods do far poorer on standardized tests than do students from middle class families in nicer neighborhoods.

Why this is so is debatable. There are probably many factors, not least of which is that schools in poorer neighborhoods are under funded and do not have the tools necessary to provide high quality educational experiences that schools in wealthier neighborhoods can provide.

But it is not only the schools that cannot do their jobs properly in poor neighborhoods. The parents and families in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods have different priorities. Some do not see the advantage to higher education. Others give lip service to a good education, but pragmatically do not give it a very high priority.

One of the goals of any national education policy should be to educate the families in economically deprived neighborhoods about the importance of education. Provide monetary incentives to families whose children excel in school. If money talks, it surely speaks louder to those who are most desperate for it.

Teachers cannot provide a solid education to students who are unwilling to learn. Most students are not eager to be taught, but those from good neighborhoods are at least willing. Children from poor neighborhoods are often not enthusiastic about learning and sometimes are actually averse to being taught. They see no need for it and some even actively vandalize the process so that even willing students cannot achieve.

Bush’s No Child Left Behind policy does not target the real causes behind a lack of education in America. Instead, it threatens punishment for schools and school districts that do not meet their annual yearly progress goals. School administrators, feeling the pressure, lean on teachers to do a better job of teaching.

The increased atmosphere of tension that permeates failing schools actually makes it more difficult for those schools to meet their educational goals. It becomes a self-perpetuating feedback loop that ultimately leads to exactly what the Harvard study has found. The No Child Left Behind Act is not working.

It cannot work. It, therefore, should be tossed aside and replaced by a policy arrived at by those who understand the inner workings of education and how social norms affect it.

Teachers, principals, and sociologists, not politicians, should be in charge of building our next national education initiative.

Doctors Want to Tax Soft Drinks

Items for consumption that are bad for you, but legal, often carry a hefty tax. Alcoholic beverages, for example, and tobacco products are taxed heavily.

And some say it’s time to start taxing another class of beverages that have also been shown to be unhealthy – soft drinks. The American Medical Association passed a resolution last week to encourage localities to put a tax on soft drinks.

I agree that sugary soft drinks are not healthy for you. But I’m not sure that taxing them is the answer. For one thing, I’m sure the tax would apply to all soft drinks, even the ones without sugar. For another, soft drinks are not the only sugar-filled beverages on the market. Do the others get a walk?

Take orange juice or apple juice, for example. You might believe that juices are healthful because of all the vitamins they contain. The truth is, an eight-ounce serving of orange juice contains more sugar and more calories than the same size serving of soda pop. Sure, there is some vitamin C, but there are better ways of getting vitamins than by consuming all that sugar.

In addition to causing obesity, sugar-sweetened beverages, as well as fruit juices, definitely lead to tooth decay. That in itself might be too high a price to pay for the momentary pleasantness of the taste, even if it contains a few vitamins.

So what’s wrong with a tax on soft drinks then?

In theory, it does tend to make sense. The revenue collected would be earmarked for health programs that combat obesity. The higher prices might also decrease consumption a bit.

The problem is with focusing only on soft drinks. True, soft drinks are claimed to be a big causative factor in America’s portly obesity rate. But the culprit is not the drink itself, but the sugar that’s in it.

Diet soft drinks do not lead to obesity, and I’m sure they would be taxed as well. And, as stated, other drinks that contain sugar are also at fault. But it’s not only drinks that are the problem. Why not also tax candy, cookies, donuts, and all those other yummy snack delights that make us fat and give us diabetes?

If we tax soft drinks, why shouldn’t we also tax other unhealthful foods and beverages? It doesn’t seem fair to single out just one class of foods. If we’re going to have a sugar tax, it should apply to all offending products.

Americans are not going to cut back on their consumption of soft drinks or other sugary foods anyway, not even if taxed. Although studies show that tobacco use decreases in proportion to the amount of tax levied on it, there is no proof that the same would hold true for soft drinks. It would take a very hefty tax to curb consumption of pop.

The concept of taxing things that are bad for you is sound. It does raise money, which if used properly would help to educate the public on the dangers of an unhealthy diet. And taxes might reduce consumption of the offending product.

But in the end, it’s the consumers themselves that have the real choice in the matter. As long as people choose to consume unhealthy foods and beverages, those chock full of sugar, salt, and trans fats, then America will continue to be a nation filled with overweight diabetics with heart problems.