Well, I feel like a broken record, but I apologize for the dearth of posts. Amongst other things, I am mired in my third year review here, so I've been using up a lot of my non-teaching/research time in writing a professional statement. It can definitely be a time sink, but considering it will decide whether I get to stick around here for another 3 years, well, it might be worth the time, eh?
Anyway, I'm going to try to catch up on some of the news out there:
Indonesia: Tambora is still rumbling, which shouldn't be news to anyone who frequents the blog. However, it looks like some of the mainstream english-speaking media is catching on. However, they have made it nicely sensational as usual, with headlines like "Farmers flee as world's deadliest volcano rumbles"! The AP articles goes onto make the claim that:
"Bold farmers in Indonesia routinely ignore orders to evacuate the slopes of live volcanoes. But those living on Tambora have taken no chances since history's deadliest mountain rumbled ominously to life this month"
Now, they offer no evidence of where this claim comes from, but I might suggest that some of the evacuations are not because of some latent fear of Tambora but rather the only recent eruptions in Indonesia - such as at Merapi (whose eruption was officially declared "over" recently) - that saw hundreds of fatalities. However, I suppose saying that the farmers just know Tambora is more dangerous makes for better copy.
