struck the eastern United States Aug. 23, breaking teacups,

rattling pots and pans, and tilting picture frames in a manner

amateur, ad hoc general estimate, at least 100 million residents

east of the Mississippi didn't feel the quake. I know of it only

because I watch TV occasionally and consult the Internet

frequently. I never felt a thing. I wish more nurses and dentists

would administer shots as gently as nature administered this

where this one placed its epicenter. Somebody up there must love

the Old Dominion, because the commonwealth seldom experiences

disaster. The last time it felt an upheaval was during the '50s,

when the Supreme Court ordered its schools

xml:lang="en">, says Virginians shouldn't get too shook up over

this quake. Central Virginia has lots of them; people just don't

means that Virginians have tough hides or gentle earthquakes, but I

think it's the latter. California skins are probably no more

sensitive than Virginia skins, and people out there feel

earthquakes all the time. The Virginia quake was felt in several

surrounding states, including Alabama and some of those threatened

live, we have ancestral memories of the Charleston earthquake of

1886. Old people used to use the earthquake the way we use birth

certificates today: as proof of age (they didn't card you at

earthquake hit," Granny used to say, which meant that she was a

wrinkled 68 when the Supreme Court struck in

was of a California magnitude. Nobody owned a Richter scale back

then, but people who know about these things have estimated it at

somewhere between 6.6 and 7.3. Its damage was measurable: Around

2,000 buildings damaged or destroyed and between 60 and 110 lives

lost. The monetary damage was estimated at $6 million in 1886

dollars, which comes to $141 million in modern

earthquake of 2011 will be remembered much longer than Hurricane

Irene, although the hurricane did a lot more damage and affected a

lot more people. At last count, 38 people had died and damage

nationwide was estimated at $40 billion 2011

dozen along the East Coast (a dollar a dozen, allowing for

inflation). We're familiar with images of palmettos bending double

in the wind and huge waves slamming against steel piers, because

we've seen TV weather reporters out there in the latest hurricane

attire, holding onto their mikes for dear life and telling us,

images. What gives us the willies is the image of Grandma's

heirloom porcelain dancing around in the china cabinet during an

earthquake. The last time Granny's china was in similar peril was

settled from the quake and the East Coast is bracing for its next

hurricane, I suppose there are some questions begging for

entire nation is to blame for electing a Muslim foreigner (who

happens to be black) to the presidency, but I don't hold to that

theory. I’ve heard that earthquakes are colorblind, and they don’t

that the quake was aimed specifically at the Tea Party, given the

number of tea cups that it shattered, but I think the Tea Party is

a tea party in name only. Most of its members drink latte from

Nancy Pelosi struck a deal with Barack Obama in which she agreed to

push his health-care plan through the House if he would take at

least one California earthquake off her hands. If the deal was

struck, Obama wimped out at the last moment: a 5.8 earthquake

barely meets the criteria for a California tremor. And if the GOP

wins in 2012, the health-care plan will have about the same life

that the earthquake was triggered by the massive accumulation of

national debt, which had its greatest impact in the vicinity of

Washington, D.C. The ground broke at its weakest point — in the

Commonwealth of Virginia, which has long stood shoulder to shoulder

with Alabama as a bastion of conservative values. As early as 1788,

Thomas Jefferson was quarreling with Alexander Hamilton over Alex's

proposal to borrow money to finance the new government. As recently

as the 1960s, Virginia was represented in the Senate by the Great

Hairy Bird (or was it the great Harry Byrd) whose distinctive call

earthquakes after people, the way we do hurricanes. It would be

handy if we could call the Charleston earthquake "Earthquake

Charley" and the Virginia earthquake "Earthquake Louisa." Sounds

sexier than "the 1886 earthquake in Charleston" and "the 2011

go on national TV and utter the classic disclaimer: "I never fooled

Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625 or e-mail