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SMSes from Sri Lanka, and a call for help with live blog

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Xeni Jardin:
Earlier today, we posted a first-person account from tsunami eyewitness Sanjay (aka “Morquendi”). He’s a blogger and TV producer who lives and works in Sri Lanka, one of the areas hardest hit by the disaster. Throughout last night — as he participated in emergency rescue and relief efforts — Sanjay text-messaged live observations to his co-editors at the collaborative blog ChiensSansFronteres. Snip:

# I’m standing on the Galle road in Aluthgama and looking at 5 ton trawlers tossed onto the road. Scary shit.

# Found 5 of my friends, 2 dead. Of the 5, 4 are back in Colombo. The last one is stranded because of a broken bridge. Broken his leg. But he’s alive. Made…

# ..contact. He got swept away but swam ashore. Said he’s been burying people all day. Just dragging them off the beach and digging holes with his hands. Go..

#..ing with gear to get him tommorrow morning. He sounded disturbed. Guess grave digging does that to you.

ref=”http://www.writers.net/writers/rohitgupta”>Rohit Gupta)

UPDATE: Mumbai-based blogger Rohit Gupta from ChiensSansFronteres tells BoingBoing,

“We now have two bloggers on the gro

…excerpt from: www.boingboing.net…

Powerful earthquake, tsunamis strike South Asia, leaving thousands dead, injured and missing

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Powerful earthquake, tsunamis strike South Asia, leaving thousands dead, injured and missing
Sunday, December 26, 2004 %u2014 The largest earthquake to strike the globe since 1964 has caused devastating tsunami waves that have killed thousands in south Asia. The 8.9-magnitude quake hit December 26 off the coast of Indonesia, triggering these extremely large waves that have brought massive flooding, damage and loss of life in the region.

Waves as high as 20 feet have crashed into the coastal areas near the Bay of Benegal. Among the worst affected countries are Sri Lanka and India, as well as Indonesia, Maldives and Thailand. Reports are that thousands of people are missing, and it is possible that the number of dead may tragically rise in the coming days.

International Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in south Asia have begun to mobilize staff and volunteers to affected areas to assist with the immediate needs. Emergency assessment and first-aid teams have already reached some of the affected areas.

Lemmings’ suicide myths started by Disney nature photogs

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Cory Doctorow:
Lemmings are widely considered to be suicidal beasts, throwing themselves en masse off cliffs. It turns out that this isn’t true, but rather a legend begun through some unethical trick photography executed by Disney nature photos in the fifties.

The myth of mass lemming suicide began when the Walt Disney movie, Wild Wilderness was released in 1958. It was filmed in Alberta, Canada, far from the sea and not a native home to lemmings. So the filmmakers imported lemmings, by buying them from Inuit children. The migration sequence was filmed by placing the lemmings on a spinning turntable that was covered with snow, and then shooting it from many different angles. The cliff-death-plunge sequence was done by herding the lemmings over a small cliff into a river. It’s easy to understand why the filmmakers did this – wild animals are notoriously uncooperative, and a migration-of-doom followed by a cliff-of-death sequence is far more dramatic to show than the lemmings’ self-implemented population-density management plan.

So lemmings do not commit mass suicide. Indeed, animals live to thrive and survive. Consider a company like Disney, where one rodent, namely Mickey Mouse, was Royalty. It’s rather odd to think that Disney could be so unkind to another rodent, the lemming..

The Disney Blog)
…excerpt from: www.boingboing.net…