Why isn't more emphasis on the news?

And btw... the rate of decay of caesium is three hundred years, not thirty.

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Crash course...

This is interesting....

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Beyond the pale.... why can't 'Murkins be

like the Japanese.

I did a moratorium yesterday, because I didn't want to add to any panic, given the very dark thoughts I was having, or fears.

But what I have been seeing has a basis in experience. Sure, the catastrophe was twenty-five years ago, but those things really stay fresh in your memory. And seemingly, no one has learned one iota since Tschernobyl when the shit hits the fan, and know what to do. Latest info? Yeah, they're gonna throw water on it. Good luck with THAT shit.... Even US experts have begun saying they need the Russian Hail Mary pass, and cover the reactors with cement.

And another report: in the US, they went into a panic buying up all the iodide they could find to avoid thyroid cancer. Uh-huh.

Well... a very respectable expert and physicist explained to all and sundry on the TODAY show... that doesn't do doodley-squat. And shouldn't be the main concern anyway. Concerns should be about released strontium, which affects bones and bone marrow. But the most horrible of what gets released is Cäsium... which can affect everything in your body, and there is no antidote that I ever heard of for that, and we had a lot of it here, and they reacted properly, places to avoid at all costs, but there's a problem with that. That element takes 300 years to decay. Can we say we're 'jolly'????

Everything I've seen today borders on 'oh, all will be well, all will be entirely well....' Uh-huh, have heard it before, thank you. Obviously, the radiation levels weren't so high in my area as to cause noticeable problems... but I do not think that any studies were ever conducted to track a rise in levels of certain cancers and other related sicknesses here either. It was a tragedy for us, unseeable, unknowable, and people moved on... but for people of my generation, it was a lesson and struck a fear into us that lasts to this day a quarter of a century later.

So far... I don't think there is much danger in what might get carried on the winds a half a world away in either direction. So far... There might be a little, but negligible. Where was the concern when the US and France tested a-bombs in in the South Pacific, and even Nevada? Even marching their troops up to see how they would react at several miles distance when they blew them up? No one sort of talks about that, now do they?

Hell, even W. was with the Legion outside Tahiti, and had to do that, watching from an island not far away, he told me that, and it didn't seem to be one of his favourite. experiences.

But hell.... everything was 'tiny' and not part of the global economy, so just fuck those tiny atolls, or whatever they were.

I guess I'm trying to say I am disgusted. The people who are really going to suffer are the people in Japan. And US hysteria among certain segments of the population are unwarranted. They should worry about the toxins in their own areas, and fracking, which could lead to setting their tap water on fire, but oh, don't they need that natural gas, hey. I wouldn't want to drink that shit....

No, all that worries me right now are the people in Japan who got a triple-whammy.

And if I see one more asshole Xtian gloating about how this is God's revenge for Pearl Harbor on Twitter, I might trash my 'machine'.

Oh holy fuck.....

I took a nap, and wanted to see something positive. and got a rude awakening. News here, but only if you speak German. A third meltdown after two are already critical. This is going to be Sooooo bad. Yup. GE.... have fun with that, the Amis nuke Japan yet again.

Oh, this is 'fun'....

Why am I getting flashbacks?...... And I love the use of the words, 'probably' and 'hopefully'.... ' Been there, done that... Nothing. There is nothing you can do. This GUY is a real tool. Love the stuttering when the 'journalist' starts doing her job and trying to corner him. And of COURSE it has to end with a brilliantly optimistic Xtian view of how people are holding up. How self-deceiving. When people are in crisis, they help. It's not some sort of 'miracle'.

Word from Kiev.... not encouraging at all

And then the bed jumped across the floor.. it was fun.

Tremblor, Tsunami, possible nuclear catastrophe? Trifecta? Gawwd, I hate the news sometimes.

I hate earthquakes, have been in a few tiny ones, but it was enough to frighten me. And could really go into Flipper mode when I would read of ones in CA, or Japan, and immediately call to find out if my friends there were ok, and it would amuse the hell out of them. They were so used to them, it was just a day in the life. Although H. in Kobe was a bit shaken, as that one was major, but he survived it just fine, thank you.

And I was shocked to learn that Tschernobyl happened 25 years ago.... because it seems like yesterday to me. I am SO hoping that those reactors in Japan aren't going to make that seem like something simple in comparison, and am not yelling fire in a crowded theater. Yet.

I will never forget waking up, planning to go swimming, and turning on the radio for weather news. Only to hear warnings about staying indoors, keeping the windows shut, and that we had high levels of radiation out there. And yes, Austria isn't next door to Tschernobyl, but you have this thing called 'wind'. And it got blown here to our door. The feeling of impotence when you hear that is overpowering. And I know, you had to BE there, but believe me, it was frightening. Seeing produce from the first crop being pulled off the stands as fast as possible by health department workers made it worse somehow. They were to be destroyed. Two weeks later going to the swimming hole and seeing dandelions knee-high with stalks as thick as my forearm added to the horror. For the next 280 years, mushrooms from some areas are not to be eaten, because they stored up all the Cäsium 327 and are dangerous to eat. And how I loved those things... So something like that just doesn't go away two decades later.

The news about the reactors in Japan seems to be getting worse and worse. And of course, the nuclear power lobby is going to make it seem harmless. That is what they do. But I am very sceptical. Very. The Russians kept a cap on the information, and at last report, over 200,000 people died. Evacuating
people within a 20 kilometer perimeter around the plants doesn't seem to be reassuring to me. They should make it much wider. If only to be on the safe side.

Add the fact that the destruction is so bad, they can't move people out of there quickly is only going to make it much worse. Nuclear power to my mind is the most dangerous invention of the last century. Man playing God, and not realising the consequences, or how Nature can really kill your best laid plans, and put a capper on it, costing thousands of lives.

And it will come back to the 'vermaledeited' corporations. Let's see, BP messed up the entire Gulf last year, and now GE---which purportedly doesn't pay one cent in taxes in the US--- is gonna mess up Japan. How nice. I hope their emergency plans are better than those of BP. But am not so confident about that. If it goes south... a lot of people will pay with their lives and health. But hey, they make money, after all....

Of all the newscasts from yesterday... MSNBC blocked virtually every report to be seen outside the US. 'This video can not be shown due to usage restrictions.' (This was Nightly News w/Brian Williams). ABC has a site that was useful for information. The reporting was soft-peddling the nuclear plant story, more on personal experiences during the earthquake. And relying heavily on YouTube videos people had recorded during it. Which I had seen mostly 24 hours earlier on the YouTube site anyway. Most of them.

However, ABC had a live Twitter feed, and THAT was interesting. There were 'Murkin Bible-bangers evincing Schadenfreude, which didn't seem 'Christian' to me at all. And people sending their prayers till someone said they should get off their asses and send a couple of bucks to the Red Cross or Salvation Army.

My favorite was tongue-in-cheek, the sort of humour which masks worry and a sort of desperation. 'That's it, I'm leaving LA and taking all the sushi with me. And the woman in 34B.' (I hope I quoted that correctly.) It is the sort of thing I would expect from someone living in an active earthquake zone, the superficial nonchalance, but the worry beneath.

Just like my friends in San Diego back then. I think it was a five on Richter. So I called. 'We were asleep, and the bed bounced across the floor. It was fun.' And laughing at me for worrying.

I do not wish to downplay any part of the triple-whammy that Japan has had to suffer. It's horrendous in every sense. But I do know that the mind set of people who live in such regions gives them a built in sense of being realistic about the dangers in living where they do. It is the nuclear part that really upsets me the most... because that should have been avoidable.

Just sayin'

Some days... I feel like a BD victim....

You got your hands tied, are immoveable, and have to watch terrible things happen without being able to do anything about it....

This is an update and correction on the original title.
You watch in horror as terrible events unfold, and can't do anything about it.

The last time was watching the events and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. That HAD to be the most horrific thing I have ever witnessed, even though I was thousands of miles away, and I wanted to help in whatever way I could... and the response was so coldly cynical, it left me spitless. And I was out BEGGING people to send what they could, if it were only five or ten dollars. Nada.

Haiti is worse. I haven't a nickle to my name at the moment... but have donated ten measly dollars to UNICEF which will be reckoned up next month, and will have a bit in the bank...

But just imagine... If everyone donated five or ten dollars to help those people, it would make a significant difference....

Just as it would have in New Orleans, but people didn't CARE. Esp. the then-presidink.

I have some huge issues with President Obama, and they are on this blog. But his reaction to this catastrophe is spot on, and correct.....

But I also get a Pepto-Bismol reaction, when I compare the reactions then, and now, in a land 700 miles away from the so-called-fucking-homeland. (Which so reeks of Nazi, it makes me physically ill... btw.)

And then to have the worst of the worst arseholes come out, and spew their racist hate in the face of what is being shown.... defies anything I would ever think of being 'Christian'. But we saw that during and after Katrina as well. Anything to advance their cause.

I could throw up.

If anyone has anything to donate.... the Rachel Maddow show has links where you can easily do that. I would choose UNICEF. Children are always the worst hurt by catastrophes like this.

But go look....

Update: I have been trying to change the title here, after a friend of mine pointed out that BD is CONSENSUAL. I broke a big rule of writing.... 'write what you KNOW about'. The analogy was totally inapt for that reason. As above, no experience there....

Whatever, Blogger doesn't want to let me change the title for some odd reason.... I was only trying to express how helpless one can feel having to see things like that happen. I suppose 'kidnap victim' would have been better, but then, I was never kidnapped either... except nearly... once when I was five, and a man in a big black car offered me candy if I would get into it.... it's a fuzzy memory.... we were in a very rural outskirt of my town, and I know I was waiting to be picked up by my aunt and see 'Davy Crockett'.

One of the only good things my bio-mom taught me was 'don't take candy from strangers'. I don't know to this day what would have happened otherwise. So that comparison comes closer.

In future... will stick to what I know, ok?

If you think...

That the earthquake in Haiti was something else you have never seen....

Me go off the charts for incensed.

And I know... that is a very poor comparison.

I mailed the ombudsman for the local rag, and I was very very angry, and biting, believe me.

I was 'awesome' in my anger. Even tho I am 'used' to being insulted in one way or another..

So let us get on to something else right now.... Haiti.....

Deep breath writing here. ... On the one hand, I am so pleased that the world is responding, and what we see from there is catastrophic.

And the creepy-crawlies, like Pat Robertson are out on the tee-vee, saying they made a pact with the devil.

Why the fuck do networks put them on to spout their Alzi messages? Incredible. In every sense of the word.

And Limpballs is out there saying 'oh yeah, Obama is responding so fast because it is 'political', and they are all a lot darker down there, skin-wise so it will make him look better if he is lighter?.' Uh-huh...

Umm... 'Say WHAT?' Hello?

Listen...

We are looking at something so catastrophic, it is near to unimaginable. To have arseholes use it politically is so despicable, it goes beyond believable.

It is about the poorest of the poor being knocked down yet again, and half-way destroyed, Some people come up with the most impious of things to say.... 'oh, it's all ok....' Arseholes. Give where you can.