Comoros volcano tremors

Reuters reports that the island of Grand Comore is in danger of volcanic activity:

In the capital Moroni, thousands slept outside overnight and national radio broadcast appeals for calm and readings from the Koran across the mainly Muslim island.

“When I felt the tremor, I woke my wife and we stayed in the garden,” said resident Abderemane Koudre. “We thought the house was going to collapse. It was frightening.”

In 1903, 17 died from noxious fumes that seeped from cracks, and the last big eruption was in April 2005 when thousands fled in fear of poisonous gas and lava.

Poisonous cracks of noxious fumes? Strange not to hear discussion of masks or filters for every family, since that’s always the talk when WMDs are involved. The article mentions running away, but is that really an option for remote and small islands with few roads?

Photo by me…near Itsandra

grand-comore_looking-sw

Speaking of alerts, the AlertNet adds a much more urgent and realistic tone to news about Mount Karthala, one of the world’s largest active volcanoes:

“My neighbour woke me at two o’clock in the morning and we saw the red glimmer in the sky,” said resident Halima Ahamada.

“A strong smell of burning earth took us by the throats.”

Colonel Ismael Daho, head of the emergency management team for the archipelago, said Grande Comore had been put on red alert.

“We have put all military and interior security forces on alert, in case the population is evacuated,” he said.

In May, the volcano frightened thousands of residents when it bubbled lava and lit up the night sky, but later stabilised.

San Fran Parking Risks and Violence

The New York Times has a pretty disturbing review of how bad tempers have become in San Francisco. They point out that parking attendants are now under constant threat of being attacked by angry car owners roaming the streets:

People in the field say abuse is common, often frightening and, occasionally, humiliating. In November, an officer was spat on, another was punched through the window of his Geo Metro, and an irate illegal parker smashed the windshield of another officer’s golf-cart-like vehicle.

“Just driving down the street, you get yelled at,� said Lawanna Preston, staff director for Local 790 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents parking control officers.

The officers are city employees but not in the Police Department.

“They can’t even eat lunch with that uniform on, because people approach them and curse at them,” Ms. Preston said.

About 75 officers demonstrated on Friday at the Hall of Justice asking for more protection.

More protection…meanwhile, a parking crisis looms. One person, apparently an expert on the subject, says cheap parking meters and expensive lots are to blame for the crisis:

“Whenever someone from San Francisco calls to whine about the fact there’s no parking,” he said, “I always say, ‘Well, you have to choose, do you want to be more like San Francisco or more like L.A.’ And that usually ends the conversation.”?

That said, Professor Shoup noted that San Francisco had some questionable parking policies, namely cheap on-street parking and expensive garages and lots, a dynamic that encourages drivers to look endlessly for meters rather than pay for the privilege of parking off the street.

But that doesn’t explain the violence. Do San Franciscans think that they should be able to fight meter officers to get cheap parking? Is the city of free love becoming a city of hate? Fighting with parking enforcement should have some clear disincentives, no? It appears there may be something more sinister going on here, highlighted in events like the recent attack on a singing group from Yale visiting the city:

The incident, [Tina D’Elia of Community United Against Violence] said, shows “a level of targeted rage and hatred that is really scary and to me just screams that it is a problem that’s not going away. … If that’s not addressed, then what do we have? We have dead bodies.”

Indeed. While it may be hard to pin down the motives, the consequences of violent acts like those mentioned above are fairly clear and should not be tolerated or treated lightly by American cities.