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FAguilera

A coalition of churches, synagogues, mosques, and cultural organizations located in the Inland Empire. Unfortunately, without any up-to-date number of members in this coalition.

For the org. there is a spiritual connection linking the desert landscapes and religious beliefs. Their primary focus is congregating more groups around environmental hazards in desert lands.

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FAguilera

The organization is looking for a “new dimension and depth” in the discussion about the environmental crisis. Engaging in different fields:

  • alternative energy development,
  • mining, recreation,
  • military exercises,
  • transportation corridors
  • proposed national monuments.

Seismic St. Louis

Emily Sekine

I'm interested in better understanding the ongoing geological processes that shape St. Louis and the Mississippi Valley region. So far, I've been looking into the history of seismicity in the region, focusing on the fascinating but little known history of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 -- the most devastating earthquakes to have hit the US east of the Rockies. I've also been exploring how St. Louis and surrounding areas are dealing with the possibility of another earthquake occurring in the future. According to one article I read, one of the biggest uncertainties is what would happen to the heavily engineered Mississippi River in the case of another major tremblor. The shaking could break the levees, flooding wide areas along the river and creating cascading effects. The flow of the river might also reverse completely, as occurred during the New Madrid earthquakes.

On these possibilities and the lack of scientific consensus surrounding intraplate seismicity in this zone, see this article in The Atlantic.

On current efforts to create earthquake hazard maps in St. Louis, see this overview on the US Geological Survey site.

For a deeper dive into the history of the New Madrid earthquakes, see this book by historian of science Conevery Bolton Valencius. 

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jaostrander

One way Schmid supports her argument of unification through her discussion and presentation of data from nuclear organizations that single countries have attempted to establish but could not take authority because the practices of nuclear science were still in question. Schmid also discusses that in order to allow proper emergency response individual companies need to share the types of reactors they are using so responders understand the equipment they will have to deal with. Lastly Schmid discusses how nuclear response needs to be more of an international because when a nuclear disaster does strike it is not just the nation in ownership of the nuclear facility that is affected.

 

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jaostrander

"As a result, however, the stories were often quite ambiguous as to the nature of the illness, and it was often unclear whether the stories were "reports of experience" or were largely governed by a typical cultural form or narrative structure"

"Stories, perhaps better than other forms, provide a glimpse of the grand ideas that often seem to elude life and defy rational description. Illness stories often seem to provide an especially fine mesh for catching such ideas. 

"much of what we know about illness we know through stories - stories told by the sick about their experiences, by family members, doctors, healers, and others in the society. This is a simple fact. "An illness" has a narrative structure, although it is not a closed text, and it is composed as a corpus of stories."