Radio Activity

After she left to explore the Snake he went to buy stamps, specifically images from the Hubble Space Telescope with names like Eagle Nebula, Ring Nebula, Lagoon Nebula and Galaxy NGC 1316.

He launched into a brief but stimulating discourse with the young unarmed postal worker woman about how amazing and beautiful were the colors and definitions of the galaxies mentioning how incredible it is to consider, even begin to glimpse them while trapped inside a federal building five short miles down wind from the Hanford Nuclear Reactor where fifty-five million gallons of buried radioactive waste seeped into water table levels near the Columbia River.

Department of Energy teams dived into, under, and through Columbia waterfalls near tributaries where the confluence of Northwest rivers gnashed their teeth snaking, roaring past abandoned nuclear plants as radioactive waste in decaying drums left over from W.W.II was flowing 130 feet down, down toward water tables.

Fascinating. He turned another fragile yellow page marked Top Secret Evidence or T.S.E. “It’s called 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 approached 250 feet as multinational laboratories, corporations, and D.O.E. think tanks vying for projects and energy contract extensions discussed glassification options and emergency evacuation procedures according to regulations.

"Scientists read Robert’s Rules Of Order inside the organized chaos of their well order communities. Hanford scientists, wives and their children suffering terminal thyroid disease ate roots and plants sprinkled with entropy.”

The postal worker and the nomad talked over a counter while a frantic mother yelled at her daughter, “DON’T Touch The Stamps” because at her precocious age, curiosity about colors blended itself toward planetary exploration developing her active imagination.

Holding a nebula in his hand he told the woman how, up in the invisible sky, are all these really cool galaxies which means we are a third the life of a 3.5 billion year old universe and she said, "That’s interesting. I never looked at the stamps before." 

Editor's note: originally published in A Century Is Nothing.

Mr. Math

Greetings,

Mr. Math took a month off from teaching in Germany. Well traveled. He had much to say.

Austrians have 17 paid government holidays, the most in Europe. By the time you add on extra vacation days they, along with other European countries have almost two months off a year.

I read Marx. It's a fine idea but pure Communism won't work for probably a couple a hundred years. Hitler's longest speech was 23 minutes, he knew the value of propaganda and marketing. Keep it simple and short.

The problem scientists face is trying to find the missing link between Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

Other people consider Germans to be too blunt. We like to get to the point. American's say things like, 'This part is good but we need to consider x,' because they don't want to appear too confrontational. It's the politically correct way for them. The Japanese just say, 'We'll consider it. This means no.'

Germans are efficient when it comes to work. This why we have a strong economy. Other countries may not like it, so they find something about the system to criticise. It was like Bush talking about 'Old Europe.'

When Colin Powell addressed the U.N. about weapons of mass destruction our Foreign Minister told him, 'We don't believe you.'

When you think about it, it's amazing what the Spanish and Portuguese explorers did by sheer will alone. It's like the Chinese. They needed an irrigation system deep in the country. What did they do? They carved a mountain in half to divert water south. They did what they needed to do. Sheer will power. 

Once when I was in Australia I talked with an Aborigine chief. He said, 'People only think the English were brutal against the indigenous people here. We had many inter-tribal massacres. We were busy fighting and killing each other. And, had we been in a stronger position we'd have done the same thing to the English.'

Once when I was in America I met a man in St. Paul.  When I told him I was from Germany he asked me, 'Do they have cars there?' He wasn't joking. No, I said. We have donkeys.

And? Be calm. Keep and open mind. See what happens.

Metta.