Remember Chernobyl 2006

Twenty years ago today a terrible accident befell the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The effects of that disaster are with us still and will be with us for generations to come.

The Chernobyl disaster arose from an accident that occurred on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Pripyat, Ukraine. It is regarded as the worst accident in the history of nuclear power. Because there was no containment building, a plume of radioactive fallout drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern and Western Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles, and the eastern United States. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of over 336,000 people. About 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus according to official post-Sovietic data ^[1]. According to the 2006 TORCH report, half of the radioactive fallout landed outside those three Soviet countries ^{[2] [3]}. The disaster released over four hundred times more radiation than the atomic bomb of Hiroshima.
[read the full Wikipedia article here]

The problem is that radiation doesn't just go out like a fire and that its effects are profound, very long-lasting, and can be fundamentally damaging to living creatures.

Photographer Paul Fusco has documented the Chernobyl Legacy and its impact on humans. This photo essay with audio commentary is incredibly powerful and disturbing.

You need to face this.

Anyone who thinks that the risks of the use of atomic energy - for power or weapons - are exaggerated needs to see this. Maybe it's manageable. Maybe. But I think about new babies being born almost two decades after this incident who are deformed to the point of being unable to sit or stand, who are unable to recognize their parents, whose bodies are altered by mutation such that their vital organs extend in growths outside the bounds of the normal human silhouette. Do we really think that our clever species can't come up with a better way to generate power? Or is it that those other methods aren't as profitable and therefore less appealing to the powerful who are not measuring quality of human life as the most important bottom line?

According to an Associated Press article by Natasha Lisova, Ukrainians Mark 20 Years Since Chernobyl,

About 350,000 people were evacuated from their homes following the explosion, never to return. A whole city, Pripyat, and dozens of villages were left to decay, and experts say some may not be habitable for centuries or longer.

The protective "sarcophagus" that was hastily erected over Reactor No. 4 is now crumbling, and a $1.2 billion project to replace it remains on the drawing board. Yushchenko has said he expects work to begin this year, and be completed around 2010.

The new shelter is designed to last for 100 years, although officials say the plant contains particles whose radioactivity could last tens of thousands of years.

Tens of thousands of years. Humankind isn't ready to plan for that scale of time. We must demand our leaders step back from these dangers. We must not goad additional countries into the use of atomic power and atomic weaponry.

We live in one shared atmosphere. One week after Chernobyl there were measurable radiation differences planetwide. Even if you don't care about the rest of the world, your nation depends on the safety and biological health of other nations.

The best path to a strong, prosperous America is a strong, prosperous world. Our leaders must acknowledge that or we must change our leaders before they damage us irrevocably.

Nuclear Weapons Are Unacceptable 2006

According to Seymour Hersh's article in the April 17th issue of New Yorker magazine, the executive office of the United States is considering the use of atomic weaponry against a sovereign nation with whom we are not at war.

This is madness. Didn't this country learn anything from the Cold War? We barely survived that (Cuban Missile Crisis, anyone?); can you imagine the dangers of a Hot War? There is no scenario in which this threatened use of nukes makes our world safer. It strengthens anti-American movements worldwide and increases the risk of us being targeting by terrorism.

Beyond the strictly practical point that it doesn't gain us anything, nuclear weapons are an abomination and no civilized nation should use or threaten to use them.

There is a plaque at the Memorial Cenotaph in Hiroshima which says "Let All The Souls Here Rest In Peace; For We Shall Not Repeat The Evil." All citizens of the world need to make clear to their governments that we do not accept their use or threat of use of these weapons.

United States citizens can send a message to their representatives here.

Denial of reality does not, in fact, change reality 2006

If we're going to have a militaristic government, could we at least have one which is competent at military endeavors? The word from the ground is not good at all and it is being vigorously ignored.

One Vietnam War fiasco was really sufficient, I think. No need to do a remake.

Initial thoughts on strep throat 2006

This freakin' sucks. I do not like strep throat at all.

Trust your inner singing voice 2006

My mother has a concept called Track 9 (after 8-track recording) which is where that song in the back of your head is playing. Track 9 usually has a message for you.

When I came in the door after a busy day at work which culminated in something I thought would happen in two and a half weeks at earliest actually happening Friday and requiring me to send work email when I got upstairs, I was tired.

I stayed elsewhere last night (oh put your eyebrow back down) and was feeling the beginning of that "Mmmm, I'm home. I have a quiet evening ahead as soon as I finish this up." sensation.

And then the phone rang.

It was my friend Jason saying "You know there's a D&D game tonight, right? Did you get the email?"

I did not get the email.

It was at this point that track 9 switched to:

...It's all too much
for me to take...

I think I'm gonna miss the game; that's what I think.