Hanford Realities

The NYT just published a piece on the Hanford "B" reactor.  It is linked below the radioactive image.

This was where scientists and Richland residents worked "at the labs." Only after the U.S. dropped the bomb on Japan did they discover the truth about their work.

I lived there from 1989-1991. It was a strange "Twilight Zone" city. It's reassuring to know after eighteen years the Department of Energy is finally making plans to deal with the toxic waste. 

An engineer friend took me on a tour of a reactor one quiet Sunday when it was down for maintenance. They were replacing the cooling rods. I was able to make images and they are posted here in the Image section.

I also collected a great deal of information about the 55 million barrels of spent uranium fuel; the long term "glassification" project with the Department of Energy and related environmental facts. Images were also published by Hanford Watch, an environmental group in Portland. 

My book, A Century Is Nothing, contains extensive reference to the Hanford environmental catastrophe.

Peace.

No More Bomb-Making, but Work Aplenty

Star Dust

The act of writing forces me to slow down, concentrate, focus and center myself, a stranger to myself.

The old Zen fool was a writer, an artist. He loved making a mess, cleaning it up and making another mess. A big bright beautiful mess.

He was also a Lone Wolf. Free. Content. And so it was decided with pleasure. The play's the thing. This amazing risk taking adventure, all extravagant, emergency dancing word art artifact of joy, traveling along pages of mystery and delight is winding down.

A poem begins in wisdom and ends in delight.

Visions of mystical potentials. Allowing the blossoming beauty to open, unfold without purpose or product. Radiant.

Water, leaf, stone. 

Wear a star on your forehead. 

It was a gift from the night, from the ink sky when small powerful stars sang their songs, created smoke signals and one particularly curious star came down for a visit, how it was wondering, "What is Earth like?"

"How are the people there? Are they kind, friendly, rude, perhaps or do they share their time, their space, their toys - do they create amazing beautiful art full of magic using multi-colored pigments on cream colored paper where, should they dream with their eyes open, spill star colors, letting them bleed, letting them run away with their friends, feeling this joy inside the silence?"

Peace.

 

Immigration's Story

If you land in J and don't have an onward ticket they, the blue uniformed ones, shake you down. You know the drill.

Extract a crisp green "C" note and slide it across the counter inside your documents. He smiles. His gold shoulder braid shudders. He gestures, "just a minute." You stand aside as Europeans and ill-informed immigrants stream past, pay, receive an entry stamp good for 30 days and head toward the next gold braided computer peering man.

Your man comes out and escorts you through the "Question?" line. 

He hands your paperwork over to another man and tells you to wait outside the "NO ENTRY" zone. You study lines of visitors; men, women, and families waiting in their lines for one last stamp, one final chance for freedom from the tyranny of travel-itis, a legendary disease with no antidote.

His friend nods, accepts the papers and does his thing. Open, remove cash, slide passport through a scanner, stamps it and hands it back. The man returns it to you and says, "Good-bye my little butterfly."

You grab your bag and hit the bricks. You are immediately surrounded by extended families desperately struggling to survive in a mean old world. On one side are 1,001 girls and women near a "Maid For Hire," sign. Some hold brooms, others caress irons, mops, wash rags and woks. The smell of burning cooking oil penetrates your consciousness. 

On the other side are 1,001 boys and men with a "I Will Do Anything," sign - the small print reads, "I can clean, drive, escort, bribe, talk, build, hammer, make bricks, sleep, eat and construction projects are my speciality." 

A single man singing a long song entitled, "If you want to play you have to pay," plays a mysterious six-string instrument in the shadows. You follow disappearing notes into the night. The dark night of the soul.

Peace.

 

Gate 207

Behind plate glass windows, doubled reinforced near quiet conveyor belts and two standing security machines were people who stayed. Behind. 

The guards and the cleaners, the attractive blond clerk with thin legs who'd finished her morning shift now going home to change for her "exotic" nightly floor show; all these clowns and European travelers sat waiting for attendants to clean the toilets and load beverages and snacks onto flight 3343 as late afternoon Istanbul light slashed through the terminal dungeon zone of quiet escape.

This man lives in Bursa. He works metal for a living. He is an artist. 

I don't mean it was fun, no - it's a long adventure. However, after just over a year in this wet misty Turkish hammam, this abject rather polite and yet emotionally distracted future tense - a void-like dream substance where people sat around showing no incentives, no desire to be even slightly creative, as if their loss, their past was always now, this dream.

An example was the sullen, out of sorts security woman, girl actually, in her 20's, forced by economic realities to accept a job - a useless thankless job, so I've put my luggage on the conveyor where it is scanned; placed the laptop, pocket watch, and cell phone in a plastic tray and the stuff rolls through and she comes over, "Do you have any knives in your luggage?"

"Yes, in the checked bag. They are from Tibet. They are made of silver with tourquoise and coral stones. The handles are yak bone, streaked with bown earth colors," pointing them out to her masked face. All the security people wore masks. 

Her mask says, "I could care less, I'm so tired, so anxious, so bored about everything and nothing I could shit a Doner in a tomato based food culture with a kebab sausage shaped like a small powerful package of shit grilled to perfection and served on a platter with tomatoes, onions and wedges of lemon for the sour reality." 

Anyway she says, "Open your bags," with a sharp edgy tone in her, "where's your mama" voice.

So, I ask her, "Which bag would you like me to open, the big or small as they are joined," so she said, "the small one, and where's your passport?" (she will never have one in her long life) so I hand it to her and she really, really, wants to be important , self-sufficient, reliable, self-reliant, strong, courageous, adventureous, and other impossible to imagine nightmares in her sweet life; 

controlling the situation with this slightly momentarily limbo based foreigner who resembles a professor from a dig out on parole from his dusty archeology, caressing relics like Ottoman tiles, castles, mosques, tea cups, carpets from Ishfan and Kurdish villages under attack by unmanned Predator drones released by aggressive war loving - keeps the general populace guessing filled with patriots serving as an excuse to print money and purchase expensive war toys while the citizen's education and health care systems collapse under the weight of corruption and theft. 

Finally finished dusting off Turkish military fixed wing aircraft, Meerschaum pipes, ceramics, perfectly cleaned furniture and assorted Roman ruins I open the zipper on the small Eagle bag releasing an amazing beautiful Golden Eagle shocking her back to reality and she rummages through fast, finding a music system and she doesn't want or care

to see it or hear it. All the beautiful music gathered along the trail of tears from Armenia genocide realities into wild wolf Van mountains, down along the southern desert borders, past fields of women birthing songs, cultivating children like seeds after a quick rain. All their voices, singing. 

You see, she is merely going through the motions. That's it.

That's a short, clear, precise and brief sentence.

Peace.

Zeynep The Famous

My name is Zeynep. I live in Bursa, a green city at the far, far western end of the Silk Road. It's a cool place to live. 

Way back when, around February of this year I met a strange, funny kind man in my restaurant. My grandfather owns the joint and my mom works there helping people and collecting money. It's in a great location and sees lots of traffic. Foot traffic from a nearby shopping center, schools and small businesses.

Anyway, one cold winter day this guy shows up to eat some delicious food like spinich, pasta, green salads with fresh tomatoes and other things and he says hello to me. I'm a little shy because...well, just the beginning stuff you know being a kid meeting strangers. Most of the people here know me and say hello and pat me on the head like some wild animal or pinch my cheek like some kind of weird affectionate gesture but they never really engage me or spark my interest or curiosity.

So, as I well remember that first day, he said hello in some strange language, which, as I was to learn, was English. He was friendly and smiled at me. He pointed to an empty chair across form him and said, "Here, you can sit down with me." I didn't know English but I understood him. If you get my meaning.

Then he reached into his green bag and pulled out a black Moleskine notebook and four colored pens; red, green, black and blue. I was curious and wandered closer to have a look-see. My grandfather, who was dishing up food for starving tribal people, and getting hotter than a kitchen on fire saw this and started yelling at me, "Don't bother the man!" and so I backed away. Somehow the man understood what my grandfather said and told him, "Don't worry, it's ok, she'd not bothering me. It's fine," and then he started drawing in his book.

Well, I took the risk, sat down and studied his colors, lines, forms, dashes, slashes and playful art. He pushed the pens toward me and said, "Here, you can make something," so I picked up a pen and copied a line, then just kept going. We did some art together and this was a brand new experience for me. It's been like that ever since and we became best friends. 

Later he taught me the alphabet, songs, numbers and all kinds of cool stuff. My English got really good. Hey, I'm only five! Whenever he came to eat we would sit together, talk, draw, sing and play. It was wonderful and we were happy together. The other adults thought we were either crazy or just plain silly. We didn't care because together we were free to create our own special relationship.

Then, one day this summer he came in and said to me, "You know Zeynep, I am a traveling teacher and my work and play here in Bursa is finished. It is time for me to leave and return east. I will be with many children in the future, like you, helping them play, learn and have fun. Sharing beauty, truth and art. I just wanted to tell you that you are my best friend in Turkey and I will always remember you with love in my heart."

I understood this and yet I was a little confused because I never expected him to leave. I felt sad and cried. He also cried. Then we shared a long hug and waved. "See you later! Take care of yourself!"

I could write some more about my feelings and how special our relationship was, is and will be, speaking of memory, however this is enough and I am happy to share it with you.

I am the star of my little show and here's my picture to prove it. My friend took it and I hope you like it. You can see a photo of me and my grandfather in an image gallery called July's Memory #4. 

Peace.