Friday, March 26, 2021

Just Plain Stuck

Do you think this is going to work?
Egypt: I suppose you noticed on the news today...a gigantic ship is stuck in the Suez Canal, just plain stuck tight in-the-mud. My husband read me the article this morning. Since the Suez Canal is a world away, I could listen without feeling much of anything. 

However, as with everything in our world today, sooner or later what happened will effect us. The world just keeps on shrinking and we are all so closely connected.

No single human being is getting blamed...yet. It turns out the wind did a number on the ship that is as long as the Empire State Building is tall. My husband comment was, "I suppose sometimes a ship of that kind can actually be too big." Yes, I think he might be right.

But the thing that made me laugh was the picture of a lonely heavy equipment scoop moving earth beside that huge monolith of steel sitting stuck in the mud. All I could think was that this is the ultimate "can an ant move a rubber tree plant?" event. Holy Cow!

I hear Egypt is going to start dredging and are hoping for high tide soon. They have also talked about unloading the 10 of thousands of containers the ship is transporting. I wish them good luck, lot and lots of luck!

The worst thing of all is that ships are arriving all of the time, waiting their turn to go through the canal...many hundreds of them. Commerce from around the world is simply going no where soon.

China: In 2010 China had a traffic jam that held people hostage for over 10 day. Wikipedia has it's very own page about that disastrous even.

The China National Highway 110 traffic jam was a recurring[1] massive traffic jam that began to form on August 13, 2010, mostly on China National Highway 110 (G110) and Beijing–Tibet expressway (G6), in Hebei and Inner Mongolia.[2][3] The traffic jam slowed thousands of vehicles for more than 100 kilometers (60 mi) and lasted for 10 days.[3][4][5] Many drivers were able to move their vehicles only 1 km (0.6 mi) per day, and some drivers reported being stuck in the traffic jam for five days.[5] It is considered to be one of the longest traffic jams by some media.[6][7][8]

My son and his wife were living in Shanghai at the time. They told about the Chinese people and their ingenious reaction at that time. Vendors set up shop on the highway feeding the people in the cars. It is hard to imagine I think. While the Chinese people as very used to crowds of citizens pushing impatiently, I can imagine that the honking of horns much have driven them mad.

In the time we were in China we noticed that the Chinese way of solving a disagreement ends in a fist fight. I think that that traffic jam may have pushed many people over the edge.

Boston, Mass.: We were on the East Coast back in the early 80 when an airline went on strike and traffic across the country came pretty much to a halt. I think it was United. We were trapped with a plane load of teens in Boston, I had the flu and those famous Boston blackouts were happening all of the time. AND Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant malfunctioned. It was a nightmare. Still it was nothing compared to the "just plain stuck" others are and have endured. Besides we had good bragging rights for many years! That is important.

As for the Suez Canal, at least people are on ships and cannot get at each other or I think that the captain and crew of that ship would be in great danger. The whole world will probably be very mad at them.

Have a wonderful day...read the new and tell me what you know!

b+

p.s. Did I mention that oil prices will probably be going up? Of course they are!

 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Leave your thoughts...I am interested.

Featured Post

Five Little Ducks...stories played out!

The children's song about the little ducks leaving the nest to fly away has always been one of my favorites.  Every mother has seen thei...