malaise is a lovely human being

well, you are HERE. ; )

No one in Flint can do what I'm doing here and feel secure.
Those poor people in Ecuador and Japan would do anything to enjoy water like I'm doing here and last week some of them wouldn't give a thought about this.

and having to bed outside through that week (with damaged to both legs) with no functioning hospitals nearby, I do understand. But, I knew that it wouldn't last. Many don't have the luxury of knowing when their plight will end….or...if it will end, at all.

Can't contemplate a 7.8 - where were you?

It was officially called a 6.8, but, it was a 7.8 in my neighborhood and others around epicenter. Very violent, and I had been accustomed to quakes by then, but, nothing prepares you for the violent shaking of one that size.

I remember it well

were rising above it…that was my neighborhood at the time.

What's amazing is how we recover and get on with life

Immigrant labor. No way could an area that size with all its needs come back better than ever without the ENORMOUS EFFORTS of immigrant labor - and a good portion of them would be considered illegal. Anyone who wants to sit on a high horse and complain about 'illegal immigrants' will always get a counter from me.

Now they offer to build prisons on our islands so they can deport prisoners from the second and third generations.

The immigrants always rebuild and then they are not wanted

Start with The Windrush

I have no fucking idea where you are from or where you live. It was a polite question but I'll not make that mistake again with you.

Some posters think we all know who they are, when, really, generally I have no idea.

thank you!

Big Bear, that little town out in the desert, the people in the areas affected were very exhausted from the constant tremors.

One thing I noticed is that after a day or two of news, the rest of the city that isn't affected, just gets back to normal.

My uncle (actually my dad's uncle) lived in Grenada Hills at the time. His house sustained MAJOR damage. Not a total loss, but pretty close. The garage fell on the cars and all that was a total loss.

After he had to move from his home of decades, he was never the same. He was nearly 90 when that happened, but he went to live with my dad's cousin in Orange County. He died several months later. Losing his house was very traumatic for him.

I can imagine how painful that was for anyone let alone a nearly 90 year old uncle.

words, short term memory issues, and everything broken in my house that could possibly break.

Sad that your uncle had to go through that, but, given the violence of that quake, I am not surprised your uncle deteriorated so quickly.

I am quite certain there are a lot of people still dealing with PTS issues from that quake.

(really loud grinding noise) got out of bed still half asleep. Stumbled as I walked to the door, figured that it was because I wasn't awake yet. Got to door, opened it, and my sister-in-law yelled to me to stay there and hold on! She could tell that I was confused and yelled "Terremoto!" (earthquake). That, I understood. She was saying "This is bad, this is really bad. This is the worst one ever." After things settled down somewhat, the house was still intact so I had no idea of the damage in other places. I went back to bed and slept through the aftershocks for the next few hours. She still remembers that and tells me that she couldn't believe that I was sleeping through them.

Guess I was just clueless. And very inexperienced at earthquakes.

I had been in a lot of rolling quakes, but, this one was violent shaking and the quake itself was so loud, you couldn't even hear yourself scream, let alone anyone else.

Of course, I'm from Michigan originally and have friends in Flint (not on this water system, luckily for them) and I get this realization when I take a shower or wash dishes.

It's actually made me be conscious of how much water I use and to try and cut back.

so we've been very careful not to waste water. This year I have a feeling we'll have floods - the rainy season started very early

California traumatized me. I can't see a faucet running without wanting to run over and turn it off. But water left running while people tend to other business seems to be happening a lot less than some years ago. That uncomfortable feeling occurs far less often now, even rather seldom.

We just returned to north Georgia from Florida, and literally every glass of our truly wonderful well water here is currently enjoyed as a fine drink. That'll wear off quickly enough, but our shallow well in Florida is right next to a marsh where the Floridan aquifer does not lie under 10,000 feet of filter but comes right to the surface. And, boy, does it taste like it. We treat, filter, and chill and it still...tastes. I'm afraid to have it tested, frankly, but unlike many in the area we're not raising children there and so we haven't.

I don't know if it's because of that, but I fairly often think what a wonderful blessing running water right at our sinks is. In fact what a blessing water is. A supply of fresh water 25 feet away, ready to be scooped up in a bucket, was actually one of the appeals of our Florida property.

for example, when they did repairs here for almost a whole day. I kept forgetting, and I kept going to the faucet, using the toilet (...oops!) Luckily I had one flush left.

I wanted to do gardening, but I would be needing to wash my hands. Etc..

We all take it for granted.
I remember after Hurricane Gilbert I didn't have running water for weeks. I remember the evening water returned - it was better than Christmas day for a child.

I often think of people not having clean water. Too bad we allowed fracking in this country and sold it around the world because it poisons the ground and water and air. Criminal.

How can it be illegal to collect water on your own property

and so true. We can't live without it.

I can survive - I'll be miserable a fair amount of the time but I can get over that - not so with water. Yep - water is life. How we take bathing for granted - or simply flushing a toilet - until we can't.

Every night in my mind i close my day with gratitude for running water, electricity, heat, a/c, roof over my head and food in the fridge.

for your reasons, and for good health, a loving family and friends.

I'd never laugh - too many of us don't appreciate our good fortune

fortunate life here.

that allows the fire of wanting improvements for all to burn

And in my community, we were parsing out water on rations, because of drought. Now Nestles wants to take spring water from our county, for almost nothing, and sell it to the world at prohibitive prices. And it's still filtered, just like city water is. So, do we let these huge companies make bucks off of our water while we struggle to keep our farms and orchards hydrated, so they can pollute the land and oceans with more plastic bottles?

I don't think so.

I'm afraid we are going to lose this battle due to money. Companies like Nestles have unlimited money compared to a small rural community.

Yes, water is important. Not just because of fracking and coal production, but because of greed and pollution.

greed for the planet's water

I have spring water that freezes in winter so I go for 20-30 days at a time with each big freeze until my water thaws. That often happens two times a winter or more. Then in summer, because of the drought, my water dries up. This is the first year I've lived here in 18 years that I've got ample water right now before my irrigation water is turned on (six months of dirty irrigation water, not potable). I can't imagine living in a house where you can shower or bathe every day, or run a dish washer or clothes washer. Or where you don't have to boil your water to drink it.

People in America have no idea what it is like to live without water, or respect water.

like that - you assume everyone has clean water

or maybe it was some other show, but it was about an Indian reservation out west somewhere (New Mexico maybe?) and how they had no running water and the hoops they had to jump through to do any of the basic things which require water. The gist of the story was about one young man who had been in a third world country helping their people obtain running water when he heard about this reservation in his own country, the US, and he decided he was needed more here.

Really opened my eyes to things we don't like to admit about the US. Just like Hurricane Katrina opened our eyes to the abject poverty in some places in our own country.

Nice of him to return home to help but all should have clean water

And not in a plastic bottle either. The rabid environmentalist in me hated that trend when I first noticed it. Why doesn't everyone have safe water coming out of their faucets in their homes in the wealthiest country in the world? Some of us do. Why did so many people get bamboozled into buying water in plastic bottles? There have been many exposes on some of the bottled water companies and how the water in the plastic bottles is no safer than tap water. I've always thought that our municipal water supplies were so well-regulated that we could trust the water from our taps, but now I'm not so sure after Flint.

Anyway, if you can find that short piece online somewhere and watch it, you'd find it frightening on the one hand and inspirational on the other. I was appalled that some of our Native Americans have to live without water.

EVIAN backwards

Well, I've often said that Americans are royal class suckers Or did Will Rogers say that first but in a different way?

Americans who don't have two nickels to rub together will spend their hard earned money making a wealthy celebrity even richer. They'll buy a product they endorse that they can ill afford and can do without thinking it will make them just like the celebrity hawking the product. My favorite example is women buying expensive perfume hawked by the likes of Elizabeth Taylor or Taylor Swift even.

I had a professor tell me once that he'd like to try an experiment of seeing how many suckers he could get to give him their money if he promised them some ridiculous benefits of buying a ridiculous product he created.

As a side note, am I detecting that you're from Michigan? The expose I read on bottled water was about a Michigan company - I think it was Ice Mountain or some such name.

in Jamaica, WI . Some of my folks migrated to New York very early in the 20th Century and others from the 60s. I'm the only one living in the Caribbean.

I'm from Flint, but I could in no way begrudge you a nice glass of water. I live out west now because there wasn't a job to be had in my hometown.

I have always thought that no matter how bad the economy got or how expensive it could get to heat the house, Michigan would always have all the clean water they would need.

Damned if they didn't take the water away.

Michigan actually has lovely clean water

What happened in Flint should never have been allowed to happen.

I assume that Obama's Administration didn't put much emphasis on enforcing it.

For Love of Water documentary by Irene Salina. It's about big corporations grabbing water around the world and the complicity of governments in this thievery. Amazing story and should be viewed by all. Truly remarkable piece of film with incredible stories. As one person said in India - there's nothing more powerful than a foot march. Nothing can stop a group of people with a purpose.

As long as the sun is shining - I have fresh cold water.

thinking how grateful I am for my water. We just spent a a lot of money getting a system in to purify it also. I was upset at first but realize how grateful and fortunate we are.

They call them bailer buckets, you can buy one or make one out of PVC.

Quality of life for all humans will continue to decrease until the human species collectively takes action to reduce population.

Wildlife is almost gone from the planet.

I, too, went through a major earthquake: Sylmar (CA) 1971 was a 6.7 when I was a student at UCLA.

We were without water at least three times that I can remember when we lived in St. Joseph, MO from
1988-1994 and right by the Missouri River from which we got our water.
Once they had to shut down the water treatment plant because of floods
and once the intake was frozen over. The other time was right after we moved
there and I can't remember what caused the problem, but, fortunately, it didn't last
long. The other times the water was off for up to a week or more.

after Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.

I'll never understand the disconnect

I would thank God that I had all my limbs. Almost everyday. And it's funny, one of the criticisms my mom had for me was that I never asked for anything. Thank God for clean potable water. And thanks for the reminder.

The only time I gave thanks for my limbs - or sight and hearing was when I saw the struggles of those who weren't so lucky.

Thanks for that reminder.

Water is something you have to pay for.

https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/problems/corporate-control-water

Which, of course, is the evil way of looking at things.

Good morning my brother Octafish!

And, if they know anything, they know how to make a buck.

Nestle hired Deb Muchmore -- Snyder's now ex-chief of staff -- and her PR firm back in 2000s, before Snyder was elected governor: MRG (Marketing Resource Group).

A Brief History of Nestle’s Water Battles in Michigan

FWIU: Even if some of their clients are corporate greedheads, on the whole, the firm and Ms. Muchmore are good people doing good work for both Dems and Pukes. I don't know her personally, but I know people who know her people.

PS: DO know you're good people, Sis!

How many people still drink dirty water, or go to the toilet in the open? We’ve used new data in these interactive maps to track global progress towards the millennium development goals on access to clean water and sanitation. Hover or click on countries for more detailed information.
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/jul/01/global-access-clean-water-sanitation-mapped

Thanks

Bookmarked

realize that not everyone has them.

You mean like Bernie voters switching to Hillary!?

Think I'll go get a glass and practice some gratitude today. Excellent thread.

Stella Artois beer is conduction a campaign.

buyaladyadrink.com

Buy a glass, help someone in a developing country get easier access to drinking water. I hope it's real.

Thanks for the thread, malaise.

Too may Americans get their water from soft drinks. Or store bought bottled water. I heard yesterday that bottled water outsold soft drinks for the 1st time. So at least thats good news. We have a serious diabetes epidemic that is straining our health system more and more.

I drink only tap water and a beer or 2 a day. My thirst mechanism doesnt work very well so I know I have to drink more water when my urine is more yellow when I pee into an old white quart yogurt container. Should be a pale yellow.

Thanks for the reminder.

for oil company profits. Clinton says fracking is the bridge to a new energy future. Where we buy our water in bottles from Nestles.

I've always thought I would do something about water. Something like make sure every village everywhere had a water purification system. That and an education for the young.

I'd love to help people access water