FROM TODAY’S SEATTLE TIMES (August 8, 2013, page A7) is this piece from The New York Times titled “Japanese PM tries to salvage nuclear plan.” Writer Martin Fackler calls the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in 2011 the “world’s second worst nuclear disaster.”
The first paragraph begins, “First, a rat gnawed through exposed wiring, setting off a scramble to end yet another blackout of vital cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Then, hastily built pits for a flood of contaminated water sprang leaks themselves. Now, a new rush of radioactive water has breached a barrier built to stop it, allowing heavily contaminated water to spill daily into the Pacific.”
Japanese Prime minister Shinzo Abe (pronounced “SHIN-zoh AB-ay”), a “staunch defender of the country’s nuclear program,” ordered his government to become involved in the clean-up and related operations in the plant. According to Fackler, Abe hopes to “rebuild public trust and salvage a pillar of his economic revival plan: the restarting of many idled nuclear plants.
That trust has been eroded not only by the original catastrophe, but also by two and a half years of sometimes embarrassing missteps by the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, and what many Japanese see as the company’s continuing attempts to mislead the public and cover up continuing troubles at the plant.”
It Can’t Happen Here (Again)
That’s a lot of f*ck-ups to start an article out with, so let’s bullet-point the f*ck-ups for easier intellectual digestion:
• Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, could not prevent one of the most potentially dangerous disasters in the history of civilization from occurring two years ago;
• Tepco cannot contain nuclear contaminated, radioactive water from leaking into the Pacific Ocean;
• Tepco cannot be trusted by anyone: not by the government, the media, the citizens of Japan, even to tell the truth about a disaster that is being watched daily by media from around the world; and
• Tepco cannot protect a nuclear power plant from common vermin infestation!
Hmmmnnn, doesn’t sound, you know, kosher (kosher is a Japanese idiom for an American idiom of predominatley white folk over a certain age called “hunkydory.” or “hunkeydorey”).
Here’s my take on nuclear power: I believe that it is absolutely necessary at this time for the human race to pull ourselves out from under the thrall of fossil fuels—which pollute the air and contribute to the likelihood of a global climate change that could endanger the existence of millions of species, including homo sapiens—and advance into a glorious, science fiction-like New Age!
I also believe that nuclear power should NOT be put into the hands and control of human beings, now or ever (and the Times piece should have been titled “hungry vermin, toxic water, and a corporate cover-up!!!”) . . .
