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TeacherAide Common Unity SESSION 4
ILLUSTRATING THE POINT
While many cities and villages along the Indian Ocean suffered catastrophic losses from the December 2004 tsunami, the port city of Pondicherry, India, and its 300,000 inhabitants were spared. Just beyond city limits, 600 people were killed by the devastating tidal wave, but Pondicherry withstood the tsunami. Why were they protected ? The answer began 250 years ago when France colonized the city. The French built a massive stone seawall. Year after year, the French continued to strengthen the wall, piling huge boulders along its 1.25-mile length. The French stopped building Pondicherry's seawall in 1957, but their work prepared them for a disaster that would occur five decades into the future. source: Chris Tomlinson, Associated Press (1-4-05)
The Hibernia oil platform in the North Atlantic is 189 miles (315 kilometers) east-southeast of St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. The total structure, from the ocean floor to the top of the derrick, is 738 feet high and cost over $6 billion to build. Unlike the fated Ocean Ranger, a platform that sank in 1982 with all 84 men aboard lost at sea, the Hibernia's design incorporates a GBS (gravity based structure) which anchors it to the seabed. It is fastened to the ocean floor in 265 feet of water. The structure does not move. It is stationary because it sits in the middle of "iceberg alley," where icebergs can be as large as ocean liners. Sixteen huge concrete teeth surround the Hibernia. These teeth were an expensive addition, designed to distribute the force of an iceberg over the entire structure and into the seabed, should one ever get close. Hibernia's owners take no chances. Radio operators plot and monitor all icebergs within 27 miles (45 kilometers). Any that come close are "lassoed" and towed away from the platform by powerful supply ships. Smaller ones are simply diverted using the ship's high-pressure water cannons or with propeller wash. As rugged and as strong as this platform is, and as prepared as it is for icebergs to strike it, the owners have no intention of allowing an iceberg to even come close. But the big one will come, and Hibernia is designed accordingly. It is built to withstand a million ton iceberg, with designers claiming it can actually withstand a 6 million ton iceberg with reparable damage. What's amazing is that a million-ton iceberg is expected only once every 500 years. One as large as 6-million-tons comes around once every 10,000 years. That's what I call preparation and vigilance. source: Robert Kiener, "Marvel of the North Atlantic," Reader's Digest (December 1998)
Players gathering for the first day of basketball practice at UCLA were full of anticipation. They wondered how their coach, John Wooden, would set the tone for the long season to come. They didn’t have to wait long. Veterans knew what was coming. But first year players were no doubt perplexed by the initial lesson imparted by their Hall of Fame coach: He taught them how to put on a pair of socks. He did not teach this lesson only once, but before every game and practice. Why? Wooden discovered many players didn’t properly smooth out wrinkles in the socks around their heels and little toes. If left uncorrected, these wrinkles could cause blisters that could hamper their performance at crucial times during games. Many players thought the practice odd and laughed about it then. Wooden knows some of them still laugh about it today. But the coach would not compromise on this basic fundamental principle: “I stuck to it. I believed in that, and I insisted on it.” In our desire to grow as Christians, we can easily forget about the fundamentals of our faith. If we do, we run the risk of developing painful spiritual blisters that can hurt us as we run our race. source: espn.go.com/page2/s/questions/wooden
I THOUGHT I HEARD YOU SAY “The scouts’ motto is founded on my initials, it is: BE PREPARED which means, you are always to be in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your DUTY. Robert Baden-Powell, English Generaland founder of the Boy Scouts
“The right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow it.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Responsibility comes to one who is prepared for it as certainly as harvest follows seed time.” Robert H. Jackson, Supreme Court associate justice
“Timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it.” George Washington
“Preparedness heralds opportunity.” Famous Saying
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