Corruption

"You drove on the wrong lane," says the man in pale yellow uniform, "Show me your license!"
"Oh," the smiling short man hands his license, "Here, officer."
The officer takes and looks at the license, then put some green paper under the license into his pocket. "Ok", the officer gives the man back his license, "I'll let you go this time."

The short story above may be true, may be not. However, corruption is an obvious issue around the world. Although there are many types of corruptions (petty, grand, systemic), defined based on situations, corruption, in general, is the use of money to illegally obtain something, whether in large scale or small scale.

1. What are the causes?
I don't know. Why are we people so greedy? It's in our nature! There is always something wrong with people! Prosperity is never enough. People want MORE money and power, and some of them don't mind getting their hands dirty. Those people are supported the immoral governments around the world. Despite the fact that corruption occurs everywhere, corruption seems to have higher rate in developing countries, such as Somalia, North Korea, and Afghanistan. As a consequence, poverty becomes both cause and result of corruption, and the vicious cycle begins, pulling the country down.

2. What are the effects?
Effects of corruption are both economically and socially detrimental. (Source: Transparency Ethiopia)
a. Economic effect: Corruption will lead to depletion to national wealth by conversing public wealth into personal wealth. It will also raise the costs of goods.
b. Social effect: Due to dishonesty, corruption "discourages people to work together for the common good." It also leads to inequality, increases gap between rich and poor.

3. What are the solutions?
- Change the government system: reduce monopoly and increase competition. The more centralized power is, the more likely corruption will happen.
- Report corruption: A hotline for reporting corruption should be held. Citizen should not be afraid to speak for themselves. However, reporting only works in a democratic government.

Natural Disasters

Many people were, are, and will be killed by the children of Mother Nature. Usually, they sleep. However, once they wake up, no one is safe from them - they will crush everything with their destructive forces without mercy. These deadly aggressive children are called "Natural Disaster".

 That was a pretty nice story for a children book, right? Let's get serious.
Natural disaster, according to Basic Planet, is "any catastrophic event caused by nature or the natural process of the Earth." Some examples are ...
Earthquake is sudden movement of the Earth's crust (outside layer) and followed by vibrations (seismic waves).

Volcanic Eruption: a disaster in which volcano releases gas, lava, and volcanic bomb. Volcanic eruption is caused by decompression of gas and magma-building process deep inside the Earth.

Drought is a abnormally prolonged dry season in which land loses water, causing damage to agriculture and ecosystem.

As the name describes itself, natural disaster is damaged cause by NATURE. However, HUMAN can actually worsen the situation, fostering the development of natural disaster. Blogger Ben Dennison highlighted six cases of human-made "natural" disasters. Here are example 3 cases from those 6.
#1 The Draining of Lake Peigneur 
in 1980, a group of ignorant drillers dug a whole on the salt mine, creating a whirlpool. Fortunately, no one died.

#2 The Boston Molassacre
In 1919, a molasses tank leaked. However, the worker ignored it. As the fermentation carried on, carbon dioxide began to build up. Under pressure, rivets eventually shot out of the tank, resulting in a disaster.

#3 Vajont Dam
In 1963, due to the stubborn ignorance of SADE (an Italian energy company) who built a massive dam, the dam was broken by landslide and rain, creating 750 foot-tall wave that wiped out the villages of Erto and Casso.

These 3 case are disasters that were caused by human stupidity and damaged as much as a natural disaster could do. As the famous Einstein said, "two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity".

Well said, Einstein!
So, how can people stop or at least alleviate "natural" and "human made" disasters?
For natural disaster, we cannot stop it since we do not actually "cause" it. However, we can reduce the damage in several ways:
1. Staying away from disaster-prone areas. It is common sense: people see danger, people run away.
2. Preparing for the disasters. It is obviously stupid to live in places where disasters definitely occur. However, sometimes, we don't have choice. For example, Vietnamese who live in middle of the countries have nowhere else to go. It is their homeland where they are born. Therefore, to survive in such a place of flood, they must have some ways to protect themselves. For instance, they built lake to contain extra water from flood season to use later in dry season. Also, they are used to the flood, therefore survive easily: it's the amazing gift of adaptation!

For disasters caused by human stupidity, well, what is the solution? Get smart, I guess...