From NEI's Japan Earthquake launch page
UPDATE AS OF 7:30 P.M. EDT, SUNDAY MARCH 27
The International Atomic Energy Agency, Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency have reported no new developments at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
UPDATE AS OF 7:30 P.M. EDT, SUNDAY MARCH 27
The International Atomic Energy Agency, Tokyo Electric Power Company and the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency have reported no new developments at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Comments
Are you aware that there are products and buildings around the world -- perhaps the very one you work or live in which literally have people baked in its steel? In Pittsburgh and other steel towns it was once par for the course -- and still is in places like China -- that a hapless steel worker would accidentally fall into a vat of molten steel which was simply too expensive to dump to recover his teeth enamel. So it was milled out as usual after some prayers into ingots and beams ending up God knows where. One once read of such incidents in the U.S. and you'd breathed pity on his soul for such a grisly unholy death and moved on to page four. Think of it! The old bike you used to ride had an extra passenger you weren't aware of! Maybe your car. Or tea kettle too. Evil old steel industry! Or years ago a space shuttle worker literally got asphyxiated in the bowls of the shuttle which later flew anyway? Poor guy, croaking all alone in the core of super-high technology that way. God rest his soul but give the shuttle a pass. Move on to page seven.
At Fukushima some technically careless workers were burned by radioactive water and stop the presses and honk the alarm. Workers ("merely") burned by radioactive water -- you know that dark glowing mysterious stuff Darth Vader bathes in -- and there are cries of consternation and horror that somehow something uniquely unearthly and unholy reached out and zapped these poor people -- never mind they're still alive and might well survive their injuries -- which is a fire-sale bargain compared hundreds of other industrial accidents where people perish daily. Or wish you had.
Somehow being touched by nuclear energy is a special curse, a kind of nether-worldly Satan kiss from a dark force that never should've been unearthed. Wow -- two or three guys got whacked by nuclear energy. Man, we gotta shut everything nuclear down to punish the atom for such an unnatural insult on humanity like what it did at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Chernobyl. This evil uncontrollable genie must be shoved back the bottle or we're all doomed. I mean just saying the word radiation the wrong way will zap you good, and if the REMs don't get ya the stress over it will! Why is nuclear energy cited as such a unique case?
Why is ultimate theoretical potential to annihilate taking a front seat to actual real-world results? There are biowar viruses and microbes developed around the world of such pernicious potency that in theory a mere flask can decimate the human race -- no place to hide from such a miserable death -- yet where are the media cries and alarm and protests? Turn to page six. A fright train of toxic chemicals derails and a several tens of thousands must move out into the cold for shelters miles away for a week or so till the stuff is cleaned up. Wow, what a bummer for them. Move on to page nine. Let's not even talk about Bhopal and why that's somehow less "evil". I mean anyone can relate to having your lungs burned out alive on the spot, right?
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Of course most of media have a stake in slandering anything nuclear, being self-appointed guardians of the public welfare and Earth Day babies, and as such all knights need a dragon to slay to show the science-unwashed they care, and as we all know nuclear energy is the baddest unworldly beast out there. After all the U.S, developed it and first uniquely killed with it and we all know the birth the nuclear age was a big evil blast in the New Mexico desert right? (You see, nuclear energy's debut as the world's first chain reaction in a quiet little reactor back 1942 in Chicago doesn't count -- too unexciting and nothing ominous about a dirty pile of graphite). But hey, look what the atom's already done! Killed fifty thousand a year just in this country! Er, my mistake. That's auto accidents. Okay, it's killed over five thousand Americans a year! Er, sorry, that's household poisonings. Why isn't the media countering the fear with education and perspective? Are they that clueless -- or have they a colored agenda?
You educate the public exactly what radiation is and does and can't do and you can balm the fears of wild speculation and anticipations of doom and blood pressure. Education and perspective. Tools unfortunately the media has a gross wanting of in it's constant line-ups of blatantly anti-nuclear energy "consultants" stroking fears to feed their own agendas. I'm not asking for nuclear cheerleaders, just a little perspective and education, but the panic out there shows that few are getting it. Thirty guys get crushed and blown apart deep a dark coal or ore mine. Pity the poor guys and god rest their souls. Move on to page seven.
If we don't shine the light of education and perspective on the fears it won't get done. The media certainly won't.
James Greenidge