Aftermath

Happy Boxing Day! I know most of the West doesn’t observe it, more’s the pity. Back in Greece, I would be off work (or, if my shifts dictated I should work, I would be paid the holiday rate), but here in the UK it’s business as usual, and if we’re at home it’s because the breadwinner of the family is an educator.

I’ve noticed that, once more, the couple of days around Christmas has been fraught with disaster and death. A swift look on Wikipedia confirmed that it’s something of a pattern. As if we’re being reminded that the trappings of the festive days can change at any time, and only the spirit remains. In fact, we got off light this year. Just check out a part of the list:

24 December
1953: Tangiwai train disaster, New Zealand, 153 victims.
1974: Cyclone Tracy devastates Darwin, Australia.
1997: Sid El-Antri massacre, Algeria, 50-100 victims.
Notable deaths: Vasco da Gama (1524), William Makepeace Thackeray (1863), Johns Hopkins (1873), Alban Berg (1935), Samael Aun Weor (1977), Louis Aragon (1982), Peyo (1992), Toshirō Mifune (1997), Harold Pinter (2008)

25 December
1989: Trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu.
Notable deaths: Samuel de Champlain (1635), Karel Čapek (1938), İsmet İnönü (1973), Gaston Gallimard (1985), Charlie Chaplin (1977), Joan Miró (1983), Pierre Victor Auger (1993), Birgit Nilsson (2005), James Brown (2006), Eartha Kitt (2008)

26 December
1996: Six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey is found beaten and strangled in the basement of her family’s home.
1997: Explosion of the Soufriere Hills volcano, Montserrat island, with accompanying tsunami.
1999: 100 dead of severe weather in France.
2003: 6.6 magnitude earthquake devastates Bam (Iran), with over 10,000 victims.
2004: The infamous Boxing Day tsunami in the Indian Ocean, with a dizzying 230,000 victims.
2006: Hengchun earthquake in Taiwan, 7.1 magnitude.
Notable deaths: Claude Adrien Helvétius (1771), Heinrich Schliemann (1890), Melvil Dewey (1931), Harry Truman (1982), Dian Fossey (1985), Cornelius Castoriadis (1997), Curtis Mayfield (1999), Herb Ritts (2002), Armand Zildjian (2002), Gerald Ford (2006).

Count your blessings, people.

~ by M on December 26, 2008.