Now the Whole World Knows
So, here we are. Fully two and a half months later, and scattered amid scores of greater and lesser revelations that now -- immediately following, coincidentally, the sudden "resignation" of TEPCO's former, criminally negligent, ineffectual and reliably aloof CEO -- veritably tumble out of Japan, like turds from a bull, comes the news that Fuluajima Dai-ichi suffered, not one, nor two, but THREE honest-to-God meltdowns. All of a sudden, the quacks and the kooks and the naysayers and the doomsdayers, don't look so awfully wrong, do they? And the world, if it notices at all, collectively shrugs, and yawns, and turns away, to Libya or Israel or Pakistan or the GOP race, or Oprah or OPEC or Russell Brand or Charlie Sheen or the NBA playoffs or the NFL lockout or "American Idol" or "Dancing With the Stars" or "Kung Fu Panda" or "Tree of Life" or Arnold Schwarzenegger or Amanda Knox.
...Meantime, radionuclides are continuing to be ejected into the air, no one has the barest notion of how bad the contamination is or will be in the Pacific, no one's bothering to test fish or crabs or clams or seaweed, nations are falling over themselves to drop importation restrictions on Japanese goods as quickly as possible, nobody's disclosing the data on temperatures and pressures in Reactor 3, they can't keep pumping out the "hot" water, nobody's very sure about whether there are actually still REACTORS inside what's left of three reactor vessels, every single damn thing grown, bred, built or transported through the Northern Hemisphere for the next ten generations is liable to have some manner of Fukushima quality to it, and NO ONE can yet credibly say when this will all end, or how, or how many will pay for it, or how. But, hey, this is boring to read, and a bummer besides, and, seriously, don't you think Marlee Matlin ought to have won "Celebrity Apprentice", and don't you feel just so terrible for Maria Shriver, and aren't you glad the Rapture didn't happen Saturday, and doesn't Pippa have the most magnificent ass?
...Sorry, in a bit of a snit, and as one of my fictional heroes, Howard Beale, Mad Prophet of the Airwaves, famously put it, I've just run out of bulls---. If the human race can't even be bothered to take note of its potential decimation, much less rouse itself from this disinterested torpor to DO anything about it, then perhaps we aren't worth saving, after all. Even the animals know when to flee, when the smoke or the water rises or the ground begins to quake, to save themselves and their families and to preserve the potential of future generations.
Forgive me... I'm just despairing of the species a skosh. I'll be less dreary tomorrow, I'm surw... Unless TEPCO's just softening the ground ahead of announcing that the world will end sometime around tea time on Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays. Where's my towel?
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas, U.S.A., a small, umremarkable blue-green planet in the unfashionable sector of a backwater spiral arm in an otherwise pedestrian galaxy
This is what happens when
This is what happens when corporations run government.
And the alternative? "We are
And the alternative?
"We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions." -- A. Hitler
Read The Republic by Plato
Read The Republic by Plato for a good idea on how government should be run.
Wait, National socialism is
Wait, National socialism is the only alternative?
Jew Bankers or Nazi
Jew Bankers or Nazi Fascists. Take your pick.
Yes, indeed. The American
Yes, indeed. The American "empire" is in decline. Serious decline. And we will go the way of other empires. Not only because we are engaged in endless war-making around the world transfering the wealth of the nation into the hands of a few and extending zero benefit to the people of this country, but also to a large extent because of the complacency and ignorance and outright delusion of our countrymen, which you summed up pretty well.
A democracy cannot exist where there is an ill-informed and un-involved populace. It's only going to get worse. I envy the immigrants 200 years ago who could set sail for a new continent. We have nowhere to go.
Ha..Rick, My sentiments
Ha..Rick, My sentiments exactly. Nobody wants to hear about how their air, water, food, backyard, world could be or is contaminated. Imagine having small children in this mess (well, maybe you do). I have been so disillusioned by the lack of reaction and awareness of mothers, schools, doctors, as to the possibility that there is a health concern. I am very thankful for your rants (meant kindly), they put into words what I am thinking and wondering to myself. Any chance of you starting a newsletter or blog on this subject to possibly educate the public that this is important? If not that...then just to vent? haha Best to ya.
It's really not new news
Yeah, the reactors melted down. So? The NRC has been saying that
almost from day one. That's why they said "Uh, US citizens, get
back about 50 miles". And absent trying to get completely away
from the fallout, that 50 mile radius wasn't too far off from what
was needed. So, what is new/news here? That TEPCO downplayed or flat
out lied about the reactor statuses? Or was too incompetent to
accurately assess the reactor statuses? We knew that from day one
as well. It was reported early on.
As for coverage in the news, I haven't been glued to the tv as I
was at the beginning, but there is at least SOME coverage of this
revelation if you look for it. For the most part, it's not front page
news. As far as the US media is concerned, it's just "Yeah, things
are really messed up over there".
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/24/japan.nuclear.plant/index.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/24/ap/business/main20065603.shtml...
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=13671255
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/05/23/rods-3-reactors-japan-plant-melted/
If you want serious changes nuclear power policy in the US, you'll have
to wait until something serious happens *in the US*. Until then, everyone
will focus their attention on war, scandel, new techno gadget, ett of the
day.
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/pre
http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/press/corp-com/release/betu11_e/images/110524e...
Link to Reactor data .now as far as your rant normal people can't even understand radionuclides .how could they understand the dangers when even brawm states there eating strawberries and drinking milk (ingesting radionuclides with 30year half life's) . you are programed not to think if u do you are a minority. honestely critical thinking a class they teach it was a class at my school had and it has stayed with me to the day.Sad it's lost on American public.
/Critical thinking clarifies goals, examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, accomplishes actions, and assesses conclusions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking
It is what's is lost in a fast food consumption society,.
3 Mile Island
As far as eating strawberries, I used to joke about eating huge strawberries years ago, that must have been watered with that run off from 3 Mile Island.....here in the Susquehana/Chesapeake Bay area. How are you to avoid it? We can't be Chicken Little's, now can we? I say dip those delicious jumbo strawberries into the whipped cream, or chocolate, and enjoy. Many of you scientists can be all OCD and count the rads accumulating in your bodies. I don't have the scientific mind for all that. I'm with you about much of this lost on the public. Out of sight, out of mind. If it doesn't affect Dancing With the Stars, American Idol, or the parking spaces or prices at Walmart, all's well in their lives.
If that is your stance on
If that is your stance on the issue then why are you frequenting the BRAWM forum. This a place for lunatics, hypochondriacs, radiophobes and type A personalities who may or may not suffer from all of the above.
Kidding.
Our complacency has led us to believe that we NEVER had a choice in this matter. "The Government has a plan to deal with this...they must...why would they build something capable of destroying all of mankind if those brainiacs and politicians didn't have a contigency plan...that's just crazy right???"
This seems to be the mindset of most people I know who would rather just leave the whole issue out of sight and out of mind. Why would they build a particle collider that "conceivably" could spawn black holes that could destroy the earth. Because STATISCALLY it's impossible. What redeems us as a species if we don't suffer and strive to understand the universe and that understanding comes at a heavy price sometimes.
God is dead, remember? They announced it long before I was born sometime back in the sixties or seventies right? Science is the modern faith. "Our fathers who art in lab coats...complacent be thy name". I think it was carl sagan who said “Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”–Carl Sagan
Our way of life...with the automobiles, and televisions, and neon signs and twenty four hour news cycles come at a price. Think FAUSTIAN. This isn't about nuclear power being unsafe...it's about the FOLLY OF MAN! We are irresponsible, lazy and complacent. Seems like we made this bed...now LIE IN IT AND GO TO SLEEP.
I honestly can't tell...
...if you mean that as criticism, mockery, endorsement, or all of the above, Anonymous.
Rick Cromack.
Allen, Texas
Seriously????
You have some audacity to comment on the thinking abilities of others. You did not post a single complete and correctly punctuated sentence. Yes, this is the Internet however it doesn't mean one should write as if they have never seen the inside of a classroom. I'm just saying!
As for the OP; I couldn't agree more. The media/military/industrial complex is doing everything they can to distract people from what is really important. We talk about the private issues in the lives of celebrities instead of illegal wars. We talk about "reality" TV programs instead of the fact that the Banksters are raping America of her wealth and turning her population into veritable serfs. I left America 7 years ago because I saw the writing on the wall. My suggestion is to get out while you still can. The freedom to leave may not last forever.
What country did you move
What country did you move to? Where is better?
Thank you for expressing how
Thank you for expressing how so many of us are feeling. It's like walking through a dream, everyone just going about their day...what will history say?
western press culture
Don't despair. We in the west can't handle more than a few weeks of the same story. In my estimation we can handle the following load at any one time:
- 1 abduction / child rape / murder story
- 1 celebrity issue (oh Ms. Lohan!)
- 1 Disaster with a capital 'D'
- 1 sports story
- 1 war
- 1 election
Right now Casey Anthony, the Mississippi (followed by the plume above Iceland), Libya etc. are the focus now.
(Also, my personal beef with media coverage (particular Iceland): God help those stranded travelers, I know I've had to sleep on the floor and on benches in airports and it starts to ache after a while.)
So don't feel bad. We just don't have the stomach for multiple weeks of doom and gloom. We're assured that the "top men" are on the problem, the problem is bad, and that there will be a follow up story periodically followed by flare-ups from both sides. "Fukushima" will be a buzz word as "Chernobyl" was with pro-nukes citing reasons why it isn't probable that that will happen again with some contentious project, and the anti-nukes citing pictures of kids with masks on and then we're right back to square one. It's not necessarily a bad thing; people who care (obviously you're in that camp) are trying to pay attention, discern what the long term effects are, and discuss with other interested parties what lessons may have been learned. Most people aren't even literate enough to know what half life is and what effects ionizing radiation have.
Ranting with you!!!
Yes, I am as enraged as you are! I keep screaming in my head, since no one else in my circle seems to be listening, CAN'T YOU SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING?!! DON'T YOU GET IT?!!!! DON'T YOU CARE?!!!!! YOOO HOOOO....WAKE UP!!!!!
I cannot shake people, I cannot rouse them, I think that, at this point, most of my friends and family probably delete my email as so much "spam!"
Please, can someone tell me how to get folks to wake up? It seems as if I am living a nightmare, while they are all living in some sort of dream world.
But, Rick, you and I (and most others on this site) are living in the same reality here---and it is horrifying.
What the H--L does it take to get people to pay attention to this global catastrophe....???????? Rick, I am screaming as loud as I can right alongside you, believe me! Not all of us are sheep...if the world is going to rot (or worse), at least we are going to go down fighting!!!!!
This is what we have gotten
This is what we have gotten with our "no child left behind" education system. This is what we get from deregulating "news" or "media" allowing the same companies that commit the atrocities to our planet, and thereby to us, to control all information which is now only propaganda.
You must surely realize how brilliant the corporate machine truly is.
We have a Supreme court that has given the "corporation" status equal and greater than the ordinary citizen, GE and Comcast are partners in NBC...and certainly all media companies need chips and other technology from Hitachi and Toshiba, the corporate connections are everywhere. The media have "re-educated" the naive, un-seeking victim of "no child left behind" to help them realize that these elements are everywhere anyway, so what is the big deal...
Really? WE ARE FEEDING THIS TO OUR CHILDREN! The milk in the store is contaminated, and everything that is made with milk...
Is this the answer to our Social Security system and Medicare going broke problem?
I mean let's see... so your child is 10 now, you are feeding them bits of this in everything...water, it is on the salad, in the milk and cheese, and the meat... so, in about 10 years, at most, our babies will start having symptoms of bone cancer, or thyroid cancer...
If they live 10 more years, they will be lucky...so this generations' life expectancy occurs to be about 30 years... and not likely to produce many healthy children... and with all of this... maybe we can save a few bucks of national debt, so we can give the very companies that caused this, and other horrendous catastrophes, a tax break so they can have more profits for their shareholders... and besides, the big drug companies and medical communities will make bank, so relax... it is good for the "economy" think of all the jobs this will create...hmmmm... brilliantly evil.
No Child Left Behind was
No Child Left Behind was pushed for this very reason - to create good workers who won't ask questions. Our children need to be cogs in the machine that produce profits for corporations. No Child Left Behind is the antithesis to an inquiry-based education that creates thoughful critical thinkers and community oriented citizens. That's why the corporate machine, aided and abbetted by the GOP have been working for the last decade so hard to revamp the text books - reducing information on Thomas Jefferson (who advanced government of for and by the PEOPLE) and increasing information on the 'government sucks/the private sector should decide everything' Ronald Reagan. We now have a corporatocracy in this country. The GOP is the political arm and the mainstream media is the propoganda arm. The Supreme Court, in one of the worst and most criminal decisions in the nation's history, have given corporations equal status to american citizens and they can now spend UNLIMITED amounts of money to influence elections. It's hard to imagine given the state of public education, and the money influence in governemnt, how we can ever turn the clock back on this...
NCLB has been devastating
The universities are starting to see students that have spent their academi lives in thie system. It's profound, at least for the large majority of students. Your very top students, still top students and doing well. After that, it all goes to hell...havine a really tough time educating these kids at the university level. (Of course the increased financial pressures on them aren't helping at all.)
Same as it ever was
Go read a news paper or watch a movie as far back as you can find. The
issues are the same. Only the names change.
No, they're not. When i was
No, they're not. When i was a kid in the 70s, the news actually reported and investigated! The media wasn't OWNED by corporations like GE. Millions and millions of dollars were not spent on elections. Children didn't spend the entirety of their time at school training to take standardized tests. When I was a kid we actually had schools that worked - my parents didn't have to give donations every year just so we could have music and text books. We actually had, god forbid, public universities that you could afford to attend.
It's not at all the same as it used to be. All the protests of the 60s were a direct result of a thriving and prosperous middle class that had the time (and education) to look around and see that things weren't that great and they wanted to make them better. Now, everyone is working too hard and too insecure in their future to think about protesting. We are serfs. The main reason to destroy the middle class (which is what is being done, make no mistake) is to keep us working hard, keep us insecure and willing to accept more work for less pay, and keep us from protesting, or even questioning.
Wow. That's some grand plan you've visualized
Getting way off into the weeds here, but.....
I think it's much more simple than that. It's greed. Period. On
EVERYONE's part. Individuals, corporations, unions and the list
goes on and on. As citizens of this country, we've all got our
hands in the pot and not on the steering wheel.
I agree with your assessment of the media. It's BAD. But, it's
not so much mind control as it is wallet control. They give the
public what it wants. Entertainment. Which is why you have a
bunch of beautiful anchors that deliver the news with a smile
(I loved Rick's "SMILIN' JIM" comment, btw). Not old men who
actually had time in the field and thought for themselves.
As for the state of our education system, I hear you. Parents
used to be able to just send their kids off to school and things
got done. They weren't required to donate. And weren't required
to help grade papers for the teachers. But, why is that? For Calif,
where is all the state money going? The state budget has grown 10x
since the 1976/77 fiscal year (12.5 billion 76/77 to 127.3 billion
11/12). And the schools get at least 40% of that budget. You have
to wonder where all the money is going. If not to the schools, then
where? The expenditures grew by 10x as well.
Calif. state budget history:
http://www.dof.ca.gov/budgeting/budget_faqs/documents/CHART-B.pdf
Calif. K-12 education budget
http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/pdf/BudgetSummary/Kthru12Education.pdf
WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING???
Greed is simple if you are
Greed is simple if you are rich...it is more of a game of monopoly than anything else... this is an "old boys club" hiding behind corporations, buying the means to control information, and using the platforms they have bought to air their own "truths" that often help control or increase their bottom lines...
Our nation is a corporate welfare nation where the health and welfare of it's citizens doesn't even make the nightly news... in the meantime the tax breaks and loop holes continue. All while the sheeple cheer!
Please, people, wake up... don't companies need educated people to work for them? ...roads/infrastructure for employees to get to work to make those profits? how about shipping goods...and air control etc? Yet, the big corporations... GE, Google, etc... pay almost no tax... this is welfare for the corporation, servitude of the people... what a farce... at least with citizen welfare, or TANF, there is a 5 year lifetime cap on access... how about we try something similar with some of these corporations...
As for Cali education...well, how are admin costs? energy costs? textbook costs? maybe security costs... I bet there is greed, graft, and plenty of no bid crap going on that has nothing to do with the students actual education.
not shortage throughout the education system
"Greed, graft, and plenty of no bid crap going on that has nothing to do
with the students actual education" is right. By all involved in the
system. The river of money gets sucked dry like the Colorado River before
it can make it to the education part. All overhead.
I am feeling you man. What's
I am feeling you man.
What's next? This is the biggest story since WW2 and it's been downplayed to the extent that three full on meltdowns are not even newsworthy. Oh, and the Pacific Ocean being pumped full of the worst poison? Meh.
It seems to me that much of the silence on this is to preserve the economy of Japan and the US. Screw the people, the land, the water, we gotta keep the machine rolling.
This would be a good time to believe in God, but that ship sailed and I wasn't on it.
Thanks for the rant.
Well in retrospect
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/A_how_many_mile_radius_would_be_in_danger_if_t...
Answer
When the Three Mile Island plant had a meltdown in 1979 that destroyed the reactor core, there was no danger at the site boundary (which is about 1/4 mile from the plant). The reactors in operation today are of the same design and are as safe.
Additional information
On the other hand, cancer deaths in the TMI area are statistically higher than they were pre-accident. Radioactive materials were released with the vented steam from the incident. And worse accidents can occur. We engineer to avoid them, but there are contingencies that are beyond control. Earthquakes are among the most disturbing events that can affect a nuclear power plant's operation. And a big quake can cause damage that protection schemes cannot cope with. California is earthquake country, and they're looking for the next big one. There are three operating nuclear power plants along the coast.
Onward to the answer
As weather conditions, particularly wind, play a major role in the distribution of radioactive material that may result from a meltdown and the failure of containment, it is impossible to say how far away one should be if concerns over this possibility are more than minor. Each plant has engineering considerations that include the assessment of "radioactive release" scenarios, and materials should be available to the public simply for the asking. Maps will show geography and possible wind activity, and will plot out possible distribution schemes.