Big Ideas

Greetings,

Now it happened that one day Marco Polo discovered an old document along the Silk Road. It was written in a proto-European language. Ahmed, a well educated camel driver translated it for him.

"Lots of BIG Ideas"

If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:

There would be:

57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 would own a computer

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.

"Excellent translation," said Marco.
"My pleasure," replied Ahmed.

Peace.

Hanford Radioactive Waste

Greetings,

The Hanford images receive consistent views these days, what with all the energy, pollution talk and curiosity. Here's the background.

He lived in the area in 2001. An engineer friend took him out one Sunday for a tour when the reactor was down for maintenance. Surprisingly he was allowed to make images. Some were posted at Hanford Watch.org, a Portland web site monitoring radioactive waste, shipments and Department of Energy management.

He passed through initial control systems and received a badge reading, "Total Exposure System. Radiation Work Permit.”

This allowed access to non-radioactive areas with an approved dosage of 10 mrem/hr in general areas. His “stay time” was 500. My radiological conditions allowed me 1K of Betta Gamma and 2 mrem of Alpha.

They gave him a dosimeter badge to monitor my dosage in high/high-high radiation areas, contaminated areas and airborne radioactive areas or particle control areas. At every level he passed through a series of chambers where the badges were scanned to monitor exposure levels. Inside a chamber he'd stand on designated floor plates as a scanner did a frontal full body then read his back. A technician on the other side of the glass would see the results and allow access to that level.

All very Sci-Fi, think Outer Limits or The Twilight Zone circa Cold War.

He spent 3 hours with the engineer exploring every level of the reactor including the control room, turbines, cooling rod zone at the core level, waste containers and the energy grid sending power throughout the Pacific Northwest.

The Hanford nuclear reactor site has 55 million gallons of buried radioactive waste seeping 130 feet into water table levels near the Columbia River in decaying drums left over from WW II. Plutonium has a half-life of 24,100 years.

“There's also Technicium, TC-99,” said an Indian scientist on a shuttle between reactors. “This is the new death and we know it’s there and there is nothing we can do to prevent it spreading.”

The waste approaches 250 feet as multinational laboratories, corporations and D.O.E. think tanks vying for projects and energy contract extensions discuss vitrification (combine waste with glass to make them stable) options and emergency evacuation procedures according to regulations. Scientists read Robert’s Rules Of Order inside the organized chaos of their well order communities.

The Hanford link through Wikipedia contains extensive information.

This is his glowing report.

Peace.

Hanford Site

Pollution Poison

Greetings,

We published a blog post "Mating Dance" on 1 Feb about local trash burning in rural China. Here's an excellent article from Spiegel and detailed visuals on the extent of toxic exports. Enlarge the map and related graphics to get a clear picture of China's pollution reality.

26 million tons of sulfur dioxide produced by factories and power plants between 2000 and 2005 is blowing in the wind.

"Pay now or pay later," said the developer watching bulldozers clear farm land for a new coal burning monster. "Ah, such a sweet legacy we leave for future generations," said his banker in Hong Kong watching a brown haze envelop his world.

Keep breathing.

Peace.

The Downside of the Boom

A conversation with Susan

Greetings,

She wanted to know my age.

“I am 2000 years old,” I said.

We played a game. I never told her my true age, afraid to tell her the truth knowing it didn’t matter to one of us. I sent her a photo revealing the truth. Susan just didn’t see it. She was hard and driven and desperately tried to pin me down to a true age. I practiced well rehearsed verbal dancing steps. She was a practical no nonsense person and I was a romantic dreamer.

We talked about everything but mostly I listened to her pain. We shared emotions and feelings and she was surprised at my openness. Our reality and distant security increased emotional truth and trust. We spent hours on the phone in conversations full of laughter, insight, confronting grief and loss and discovering ourselves. Our communication bills were staggering.

We were lost, looking, open and honest.

We talked about our dysfunctional families, about the absence of love in our respective families, her brothers and the sexual humiliations they faced. She talked about the stress of working in an operating room during heart surgeries, how some of the ancient surgeons were inept with chauvinist attitudes, how she was uncomfortable working with her ex-boyfriend, how she was not handling their breakup very well and her desire to find a new job.

Susan said she enjoyed attending a neighborhood church service because of the piano player, small crowds and the joy of shaking the priest’s hand. I was another small confessional box in her life.

She wanted out of Chicago to be near friends. A new professional environment where she wouldn’t be training students how to keep blood flowing correctly during complicated operations while the next-of-kin waited for reassuring words about life and death.

I listened patiently with empathy. I told her about her my job, travels, and old healthy and unhealthy relationships. We discussed films and books. She was reading “The Unfinished Woman.”

“I don’t want to finish it,” she said.
“How far to go?" I asked. Many times.
“Seven pages.”

Peace.

Nam to Iraq and back

Greetings,

"Welcome to hell," James Webb wrote in March 2003, the month of the U.S. invasion. "Many of us lived it in another era."

Webb, 60, a Democrat from Virginia, was wounded while commanding a Marine rifle company during some of Vietnam's bloodiest fighting, in the An Hoa Basin west of Danang. He had shrapnel lodged in his left knee, left arm, back of the head and right kidney. Webb said the experience changed him.

"I was probably older when I was 24 than I am right now," he said years after the war.

As early as 2002, Webb warned of a Vietnam-style quagmire in Iraq. He broke with the GOP and was elected to the Senate as a Democrat.

MK 31 is up. Finally.

Peace.