California: Paradise Lost
23 March 2015, 20:00
Historian Adam Smith discovers how the Golden State has long been shaped by conflicting visions of paradise - and what this can tell us about America.
Adam visits the site of a gun battle, where, in 1880, a local farmers' land dispute with a railroad company exploded in bloody violence.
The settlers were trying to defend their hard-won 'little Eden'. Railroad magnate Leland Stanford had a grand vision of an interconnected America.
Each was a version of the American Dream - a vision of a better existence, won through hard work. But in California's golden land, these two dreams clashed.
Adam argues that this is a story that has played out in the state ever since, because ever since its 19th century birth, it has been seen as the ultimate place for Americans to go to make a new, better life. But one person's version of the good life is not always compatible with another's.
And if you can't hold on to paradise in California, what's left?
Adam explores how, through the twentieth century, millions moved to California and created new 'little Edens' in the suburbs - but how these were often based on racial exclusion.
He meets Dorothy Mulkey, an African-American woman whose dream of a new apartment in 1960s Orange County led her to spend years battling against legalised racism in housing - ending in victory in the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, a radically different version of paradise was conceived in the hippie enclaves of San Francisco - and rapidly found itself at war with the suburban version of the good life.
Risk of big earthquake on San Andreas fault rises after quake swarm at Salton Sea
The rumbling started Monday morning deep under the Salton Sea. A rapid succession of small earthquakes — three measuring above magnitude 4.0 — began rupturing near Bombay Beach, continuing for more than 24 hours. Before the swarm started to fade, more than 200 earthquakes had been recorded.
“This is close enough to be in that worry zone,” seismologist Lucy Jones said of the location of the earthquake swarm. “It’s a part of California that the seismologists all watch.”
“When there’s significant seismicity in this area of the fault, we kind of wonder if it is somehow going to go active,” said Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson. “So maybe one of those small earthquakes that’s happening in the neighborhood of the fault is going to trigger it, and set off the big event.”
And that could set the first domino off on the San Andreas fault, unzipping the fault from Imperial County through Los Angeles County, spreading devastating shaking waves throughout the southern half of California in a monster 7.8 earthquake.
(OMG! Run run run! )
Then it's too late - start running now!Believe me nobody is going to run before it happens.