Monday 30 May 2011

Searching for solutions . . .


In Finland they are debating what to write on the Warning Signs at the place where they will bury their nuclear waste. The signs will have to deter curiosity seekers for 100,000 years.

UNDER THESE ROCKS

RESTLESSLY SLEEP

THE MONSTERS OF MOX


image:gw

FUKUSHIMA FUTURE ZOO

"I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas"

DO NOT APPROACH THE EXHIBITS
RADIATION DANGER 100,000 YEARS

image:gw

The Boxing Kangaroo

- for Gedle

Three bored lions
sad as clowns
yawning in a green cage
and a ringmaster
cracking his whip
trying to get their attention . . .

But we kids
we weren't there for the sleepy lions
or the daring dazzling flying trapeze
or the bejeweled elephants
or the sad-faced clowns . . .

Roll up! Roll up! A fiver to any man here
who can go 3 rounds with the Boxing Kangaroo . . .

First up was Jones the Fist
the terror of the weekend pubs -

He rolled-up his sleeves; showed us
muscles like rocks,
arms like jackhammers
fists like sledgehammers.

They gloved him up
and the bell clanged.

From the red corner - Fist.
From out of the blue - the Kangaroo
caught Fist with a hook.

Fist swayed
and fell like a fish.
The count was a mere formality.
A gorilla dragged him away.

Roll up! Roll up! A fiver to any man here
who can go 3 rounds with the Boxing Kangaroo . . .

Next up was Finn the Tarmacer
loud and wide as a road-roller -

The Kangaroo caught him cold.

Finn crumpled and collapsed
like a wrecked car.
The count was a mere formality.
The gorilla hauled him away.

Nobody stepped up
after that.

Wives went home smiling and
The hard men sulked for days.

As for us kids
we all wanted to be kangaroos.

Fist went south - job offer.

And Finn?

Back to the Emerald Isle
with a story to buy the drinks for . . .

_____
gw2011

Do you remember Fag-ash Lil?


It was cigarettes that made her ill.

It started with a tender throat,
nothing much, one would have thought.

The next thing was the morning cough;
not too bad, though her voice was gruff.

But then Lilette came home from school,
said: Mum, give up. Don't be a fool!

And so Lil switched to the milder sort:
inhaled them strongly, tho' her breath was short.

In no time at all she was back on
her favourite sort, the medium-strong.

One day the doctor said to her:
If you don't stop now you'll lose 10 years!

But Lil replied between those coughs:
It's the only pleasure that I've got!

She coughed and hacked her way around
and on cigarettes spent every pound.

Too soon there came the dreadful day
And the men in grey rolled Lil away.

They placed her in a ceramic pot.
Now Lil's just ash herself. A lot!

And she's underneath the heavy stone
on which is writ in sombre tone:

Here lies the ash of one who spoke
too oft of dying for a smoke . . .

Lilette visits when she can
and sprinkles water from a can

She kneels beside the marble stone
and sheds her tears; she's all alone.

_____
gw2011



Sunday 29 May 2011

Nuclear Con-tainment!

"We're here to . . . improve nuclear safety to even higher levels" - Michael Weightman (IAEA) arriving in Japan.

You see, despite the fact that there are 3 meltdowns in progress, and the fact that a large area of Japan is uninhabitable, and that a 200 mile stretch of coastline is badly contaminated and the sea bed is also contaminated up to 40 miles offshore (TEPCO's "dilution is the solution" idea appears not to have worked) and that there are many other problems for the future including the health of the children in the medium and long term, and the seasonal typhoons in the short term, they still won't admit that the situation is dangerous or even unsafe. And they probably NEVER will.

To see what these people are really like go to the NRC-ACRS video on Arnie Gunderson's Fukushima Updates! Witness for yourself how they constantly interrupt him, try and prevent him from getting his message out, try to give him an uncomfortable passage through the generous speaking time of 5 minutes they have allowed him.

And I have to ask where's the WHO in all this? Why aren't their people accompanying the IAEA teams to Fukushima with a view to protecting our health?

The answer:
WHO - IAEA Agreement 1959. Nuclear con-tainment.

Saturday 28 May 2011

Slaughter

Yesterday evening it was humbling to be present in the audience in the Mozart Saal of Vienna's Konzerhaus and to witness another superb performance by British tenor Ian Bostridge, a regular visitor, - this time accompanied by Helmut Deutsch on the Klavier.

As well as works by Gustav Mahler the programme included the Walt Whitman / Kurt Weill songs: Beat! Beat! Drums!, Oh Captain! My Captain!, and Dirge for Two Veterans, and from the Benjamin Britten / William Soutar series Who are these children? the songs: Nightmare, Slaughter, Who are these children? and The children.

I must congratulate Ian Bostridge on his choice of material and interpretation.

It was a programme for our present time, this sad twenty-first century when the slaughter of the innocents continues unabated, war upon war, battle upon battle, and weapon's grade depleted uranium is blown around every theatre like sand and phosphorous is dropped on cities like New Year's Eve starbursts . . . with tragic consequences for the children, for those as yet unborn, and those never to be born . . . and the War Inc. factions ever rumble on.

Slaughter

Within the violence of the storm
The wise men are made dumb:
Young bones are hollowed by the worm;
The babe dies in the womb.

Above the lover's mouth is pressed
The silence of a stone:
Fate rides upon an iron beast
And tramples cities down.

And shall the multitudinous grave
Our enmity inter;
These dungeons of misrule enslave
Our bitterness and fear?

All are the conquered; and in vain
The laurel binds the brow:
The phantoms of the dead remain
And from our faces show.

__________
William Soutar
1898-1943

Friday 27 May 2011

Thursday 26 May 2011

haikushima 2


it was never
the apple

- you may unzip

your banana

.

haikushima 1


my neighbour's
radio

reports

ground breaking news

-

The haikushima is my new form of haiku. It contains an oddly placed and/or broken line
which is intended to symbolize and/or emphasize a difficulty in a given situation. This haikushima is dedicated to the courage of the liquidators of Fukushima and Chernobyl.

MAINICHI DAILY NEWS HAIKU 15th INTERNATIONAL CONTEST

Mainichi Daily News (see my A-Z LINKS) is open for submissions in English or French in the International Section of the 15th Haiku Competition. Closing date is 31st August 2011.

Contestants may submit up to 2 haiku. There is no entry fee (except in Japanese section of the competition).

Good luck!

No case of petty right or wrong

This is no case of petty right or wrong
That politicians or philosophers
Can judge. I hate not Germans, nor grow hot
With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers.
Beside my hate for one fat patriot
My hatred for the Kaiser is love true:-
A kind of God he is, banging a gong.
But I have not to choose between the two,
Or between justice and injustice. Dinned
With war and argument I read no more
Than in the storm smoking along the wind
Athwart the wood. Two witches' cauldrons roar.
From one the weather shall rise clear and gay;
Out of the other an England beautiful
And like her mother that died yesterday.
Little I know or care if, being dull,
I shall miss something that historians
Can rake out of the ashes when perchance
The phoenix broods serene above their ken.
But with the best and meanest Englishmen
I am one in crying, God save England, lest
We lose what never slaves and cattle blessed.
The ages made her that made us from dust:
She is all we know and live by, and we trust
She is good and must endure, loving her so:
And as we love ourselves we hate her foe.

Philip Edward Thomas was born on the 3rd March 1878 and killed in action on 9th April 1917.

Tuesday 24 May 2011

Happy 70th Birthday Mr Dylan!

Can't let the day pass without offering my congratulations to Bob Dylan.

Simply enter the keywords from "Note on a glimpse of Bob Dylan" in the blog search box, Bob!


Sunday 22 May 2011

Wednesday 18 May 2011

Ancient Wisdom ignored


do not build
beyond these stones
the line of ancient
stones advised
but there came men
who couldn't read
or couldn't think

outside the box . . .

plutonium-MOX

_____
gw2011



Monday 16 May 2011

Cesium, unlike sugar


is completely tasteless

in tea

- one lump or two?


______
Of 15 samples of Japanese tea leaves recently tested at least 5 samples were found to contain dangerous levels of radioactive cesium - levels up to 780 becquerels per kilo in harvested tea leaves.

Most dangerous meltdown is no. 3 - because no. 3 contained the rods of plutonium-MOX; so when you read of smoke, explosions, fires, leaks, the containment vessel being breached and all the rest of it, always check to see if no. 3 is involved.

EMERGENCY UPDATE: visit my RT Link for FUKUSHIMA latest from Prof. Christopher Busby - "radiation now appearing in Wales...", "situation out of control".

Inside circles

the tens
the hundreds
and the thousands
were found to be easy
but when it came to the millions
they found they couldn't deal with the numbers
and so they left them all there
just where they were
inside the circles
drawn on their
maps
______
gw2011
The number of people who would need to be evacuated if the Fukushima no-go zone was extended to 50kms would be 1.5 million. This is obviously out of the question. The suggested solution is to stay and take precautions - e.g. bury contaminated topsoil as in the poem below.

Sunday 15 May 2011

Back to school

And everything
appears to be fine.

The clouds are high in the sky.
The girls and boys
are hard at work
at their desks.

"The wind
may scatter the blossom. . ."

The poem
is neatly written up
on the board, and
a book lies open
on the teacher's desk.

"and the twig
shall smile from the glass."

The windows are closed
and the men are outside.

Big lorries
are taking the playing fields
away.

"Is everyone wearing
their long-sleeved shirt?"

Miss Fuji will soon ask
her class . . .

______
gw2011
This poem is based on a recent revelation by Arnie Gunderson in "One step forwards and four steps back". It is dedicated to the innocent children whose health is being ruined.

The lines from the teacher's instructional poem are a product of my own mind, not some ancient Japanese wisdom.

Friday 13 May 2011

The Typhoon Season

My mysteriously vanished post concerned the Eastern Pacific Typhoon Season which begins on Sunday 15th May 2011 and blows out at the end of November. In fact, the season appears to have begun early this year.

The reason for drawing attention to the Typhoon Season is simply the question of what might, in a worst case scenario situation, happen if a Category 5 storm such as Hurricane Katrina scores a direct hit on the crippled and seeping sore that is commonly known as Fukushima, a gangrenous sore on which they are sticking and tearing off band aids like demented doctors in a war zone when what is needed is radical surgery.

Time, as always, is of the essence. The essence, in the case being the unknown quantities and types of radiations leaking quietly into the global environment.

Whatever it is the experts from TEPCO and the IAEA have to hide from the mild mannered people of Japan they should share with the rest of the world for the radiation pouring into the atmosphere, into the water table and into the ocean knows no boundaries. Unfortunately it belongs to us all.

The censorship situation where foreign journalists are not being allowed into official press briefings, as far as I am aware, continues. Perhaps those officials don't want to face the typhoon!

Footnote: A 6.2 earthquake (click 'Japan Quakes Live!' link to view location) at 35km depth with epicenter just off the coast on 13th. Now this must have seriously jolted the Fukushima plant. So, any more cracks in the ruins? The answer may be obvious, but even so we should be kept informed. Why can't they understand this???

IMPORTANT NEW VIDEO!
"ONE STEP FORWARDS AND 4 STEPS BACK" from ARNIE GUNDERSON (please click appropriate LINK at top right).

Thursday 12 May 2011

All quiet on the hill

No traffic moves
outside
the early room
opened to
the feathered crew
the echoed sounds of songs
and doomed
to caw of crow
when one brings news
on a squeaky bike
overlaid
with the day's first take-
off

_____
gw2011

Monday 9 May 2011

A very big hole - ONKALO

In Finland
They are digging
A very big hole
The hole has a name

O

N

K

A

L

O

And when they are finished
In a hundred years time
They will place
In the bottom
Their nuclear waste
And then they'll back fill
And seal up the hole.
That's part ONE of the plan. Then
When the hole has been sealed
Some signs may be placed
saying DO NOT DISTURB
THIS DANGEROUS PLACE
Or maybe they won't.
And what form they could take
Is beyond anyone's guess.
No sign of an answer
To the whole unclear mess.

______
gw2011

Saturday 7 May 2011

Promise? What promise?

O N E T I M E
R
A I N B O W

P R O M I S E

Tornado swarms, storms, rains, and now the great floods sweeping down and overflowing the Mississippi, the immense power of nature. . .

And, according to reports, a quantity somewhere between "an unknown quantity" and "a large quantity" of a "radioactive substance" is in the process of being "diluted" by the flood.

In "diluted" form an undetected radioactive material that "nobody knew anything about" will flow with other "diluted" toxic pollutants and spill into the already over-polluted waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Tritium, this one is called. They use it to make nuclear bombs. They had stored it in a building at a nuclear power plant and somehow they had "forgotten it was there".

So I'm guessing now that all this great Mississippi dilution coupled with a Creator's rainbow promise to keep the world's floods within reasonable bounds for as long as mankind is on the face of the Earth probably makes it all reasonably OK.

And almost risk free? "Well, this material is totally safe, except in the extremely unlikely event..." they had promised.

Unfortunately "extremely unlikely" natural events are occurring with greater frequency than ever imagined.

It is reassuring to learn that the half-life of "the large unknown quantity" of tritium is only 12.5 years. Not even one generation!

So all in all it's hardly an incident worth bothering about; a convenient flood simply taking some incovenient material away. I report it simply in passing.

God might forgive us our little sins, but nature won't.

She never does.

Friday 6 May 2011

A pinch of salt

TEPCO has recently announced that the levels of radiation detected on the the seabed near Fukushima are between 100 and 1,000 x normal. I think we can safely take this almost surreal announcement with more than a grain of salt.

Anyone for fish 'n' chips?

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Radiation

In medicine, treating cancers for example, the maximum dose that the medical profession is likely to inflict on an adult individual appears to 80Gy. (Source Wiki). A dose of 10Gy can cause the hair to fall out.

I mention the Gy figures (Gy means Gray) because if you look on the radiation level charts for Japan, (which can be found via my Fukushima Clouds Link) the authorities give the information in Gy/T. T is the time elapsed since the initial release of radiation. You need to click on the column headed Accumulation.

The following Gy numbers refer to the accumulated absorbed dose rates. They are readings collected from monitoring stations. Also given is a station's name and number and its distance from Fukushima's Reactor1. There are more than 300 monitoring stations in the list.

3 Examples (from today's chart) of Accumulated Gy Levels:

Fukushima (32) 43480.801 (30kms)

Fukushima (1) 24023.400 (40kms)

Fukushima (79) 2431.040 (60kms)

You may draw your own conclusions.

Mine is that the Gy figures will go on increasing (as they must do).

Question:
MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA IS STILL TALKING-DOWN THE FUKUSHIMA PROBLEM AND HAS BEEN DOING SO SINCE THE 4TH OR 5TH DAY. WHY?


Monday 2 May 2011

haiku

helpful children
bring water for the fish
now on the beach