Sunday 31 March 2013

CYMBAL BANGING MONKEY TOY

WEAPONS EXPENDITURE WORLDWIDE SINCE JANUARY 2013

  WELCOME-TO-THE-THEATRE-OF-WOE-THE-PERFORMANCE-IS-ABOUT-TO-BEGIN-AND-FOR-YOUR-PLEASURE-AND-ENJOYMENT-WE-WOULD-ASK-YOU-TO-SWITCH-OFF-YOUR-PHONES-AND-YOUR-MINDS-IN-ADDITION-RECORDING-AND-PHOTOGRAPHY-IS-NOT-PERMITTED-WARNS-A-METALIC-VOICE-AND-WE-DULY-OBEY-

ANTICIPATING-CORRECTLY-THAT-THE-OVERTURE-WILL-BEGIN-SOFTLY-AND-SILENTLY-AS-A-LULLABY-AND-THEN-RISE-BY-STAGES-TO-A-CRESCENDO-OF-CYMBAL-CLASHES-AND-THEN-A-FALLING-INTO-A-DRIFTING-AND-HYPNOTIC-LANDSCAPE-WITH-A-

GENTLE-DRUMBEAT-BEYOND-A-FAR-HORIZON-AND-FINALLY-THE-SILENCE-OF-THE-FORLORN-SONG-(SOLO-FLUTE)-OF-AN-UNSEEN-BIRD-ON-A-BLACK-TREE-WHERE-THE-MAN-OF-THE-WORLD-SLEEPS-IN-HIS-CAGE-OF-NETTLES-WITH-HIS-EVER-OBEDIENT-WIFE-(STRINGS)

DREAMING-THAT-THEY-HAVE-TAKEN-THEIR-SEATS-AND-ARE-WAITING-FOR-THE-CURTAIN-TO-RISE-OR-RATHER-IT-WAS-WE-WHO-PRESENTLY-LIVE-IN-THE-WORLD-AND-ALL-OUR-FUTURE-GENERATIONS-WHO-WILL-NO-LONGER-BE-OUR-FUTURE-

GENERATIONS-WHO-WERE-WAITING-FOR-THE-PREMIER-OF-ARMAGEDDON-UNPLUGGED-OR-WORLD-WAR-THREE-THE-FINAL-CLASH-AS-THE-PERFORMANCE-WILL-DOUBTLESS-BE-DUBBED-BY-SOME-FUTURE-HISTORIAN-RAKING-THROUGH-THE-DEBRIS-SINCE-ONE-HAS-TO-BEGIN-(CLASHING-OF-CYMBALS)-

SOMEWHERE-OR-OTHER-I-SHALL-SAY-THAT-WE-WERE-WONDERING-AND-WAITING-TO-LEARN-WHERE-AND-WHEN-THE-OPENING-SCENE-WOULD-BE-PLAYED-AND-IF-SOME-SUITABLE-STIRRING-WAGNERIAN-MUSIC-WOULD-BE-PLAYED-OR-MAYBE-(BANGING-OF-KETTLEDRUMS)

SOMETHING-MORE-SOLEMN-WOULD-BE-SUITABLE-AND-(TRUMPET-SOLO)-WONDERING-TOO-WHAT-THE-CRITICS-WILL-SAY-AND-MEANWHILE-LOOKING-AHEAD-TO-THE-DEATH-OF-THE-HERO-AND-HOW-LONG-IT-(THAT-IS-TO-SAY-THE-PERFORMANCE)-WILL-LAST-AND-IF-THE-SCENERY-WILL-BE-

TO-OUR-TASTE-THAT-IS-TO-SAY-THE-CLARET-FLOODLIGHTS-AND-THE-KETCHUP-AND-TO-THE-CLINKING-OF-OUR-FLUTES-OF-SPARKLING-WHITE-OVER-THE-USUAL-DRONE-OF-SMALL-TALK-DURING-THE-SECOND-INTERMISSION-IF-THERE-(BUZZER)-

SHOULD-BE-A-SECOND-INTERMISSION-WHICH-IS-GROWING-HIGHLY-UNLIKELY-DUE-TO-THE-NEAR-CERTAINTY-(SECOND-BUZZER)-OF-THE-CURTAIN-FAILING-TO-CLOSE-AFTER-THE-FIRST-ACT-FOR-TECHNICAL-REASONS-(TO-COIN-A-PHRAS€)-BEYOND-THE-CONTROL-OF-THE-THEATER-

DIRECTOR-AND-HIS-NORMALLY-COMPETENT-TECHNICAL-STAFF-WHO-ARE-NOWHERE-TO-BE-SEEN-EVEN-AS-WE-SPEAK-ABOVE-THE-ROAR-OF-THEIR-SILENCE-AND-THE-WAILING-AND-GNASHING-OF-TEETH-($HOCK-AND-AWE)-FROM-THE-MONKEY-OUTSIDE-THE-WINDOW-(MECHANICAL-TOY)


The Keiskamma After Guernica Tapestry


The Keiskamma After Guernica Tapestry was created from recycled textiles by a co-operative of fifty women from the Eastern Cape of South Africa. 
In 2011 it was on display in Venice, Italy (courtesy of Mandela Bay Development Agency).

The Keiskamma tapestry is enormous. In fact it is the same size as Picasso's famous painting Guernica. The tapestry's theme is the terrible impact of AIDS/HIV on the lives of South African women and their babies. 


The message is clear; and in the 21st century you'd think there should be no need to spell it out; but unfortunately there is, as you will see in my final photograph.

Many doctors and their medical staff are doing what they can with what resources they have. Others, including religious pontificators and politicians who are in positions of power and influence need to do some serious thinking.


Have a good Easter Sunday.




Saturday 30 March 2013

A Bible Study (part 1)




Because it's Easter I decided to look at the life of Jesus as it is reported in the Holy Bible (NIV edition).

The first thing I noted was the exemplary courage of the man, known here as the teacher.

Lesson 1: TWO BRAVE MEN.

While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp." So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses.

Numbers 15 (32-36).

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In The Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no-one condemned you?"
"No-one, sir," she said.
"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

John 8 (3-11)


The Message in the Bottle:

The End.
For
Now.


Thursday 28 March 2013

Reply to John Donne


Archipelago

Every man is an island entire
of itself. Each man is a rock in the sea
even as a continent is a larger rock.

If a clod or a promontory or a manor
or the house of a friend is washed away
by the waves then Europe may be less

but Europe is less than an island. A line
fluctuating on a hospital chart. I repeat:
Every man is an island. The death of a

Cruel tyrant will not diminish the victim
as you postulate. And so the wise man
sends to know for whom the bell tolls.


No Comment

A MILITARY GRAVEYARD NEAR ROME

Poet Undiminished

CHURCH ROCK, WALES

No man 
is an island 
said Donne the poet once

Diminished 
by each man's death 
and the bell that told of it 

 Failing
to set within his sum 
the worth of the newborn son


A Little Understanding at the Vatican


Biblical acres of newsprint, not to mention masses of non-stop bulletins, reports and questionings circulating on the internet, and countless TV showings, and endless breaking news bulletins . . .

'Unpredictable' the journalists have labelled him. But the label is wrong. He is not at all unpredictable. He is, on the contrary,  perfectly predictable.

All he does and will continue to do can be summarized in a few words. It is a poem.

Thank you for your visit here.



Wednesday 27 March 2013

The Undernourished Children Clock: 97,364,114


This clock and those shown below are found in Vienna's Karlsplatz U-Bahn Station.

World Population Clock: 7,116,484,946

Worldwide Armaments Spending €316,159,930,385 since 1st January

The numbers on this clock and the one immediately above when taken together mean that €45 ($58) per person (and that includes the undernourished children above) has been spent on armaments during the first 3 months of 2013. By the end of 2013, if the planet is still supporting life as we know it, the figure will be over €180 ($232) per person.

Converts to: $406,139,046,494


Joint Declaration by President Roosevelt of the United States and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom on 12th August 1941: ". . . they believe that all the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea, or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside their frontiers . . . "

Chernobyl: 148,029 Days


The countdown clock on the mirror tells the story. Provided the people stay away from Chernobyl for 148,029 days (400 years or 20 generations) they will be ok. Of course, there could be other explosions or releases of radiation during the next 400 years, in which case the clock will have to be reset. The collapse of a large section of roof due to the weight of snow lying on it was not in a section of the building where radioactive materials were present, we were recently informed. The clock says nothing about the damage to people's DNA. That's another matter. The WHO will never report on this aspect of the nuclear accident as it really should because by law it works hand in glove with the IAEA, the promoter of nuclear energy. The same rule applies in Fukushima. It is not easy to find out the truth. You have to look to non-aligned agencies. You have to do your own research. Sadly that's the way it is.


Monday 25 March 2013

Friendly Venetian Gull - a bird with class


"When seagulls follow the trawler it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea." - Eric Cantona



I don't do trawlers;
my favourite food is pizza
with sardines on top.


The Mysterious Lady of Venice


THE MYSTERIOUS LADY OF VENICE

She stayed me near
a deep green river
and looked my way
with eyes unblinking.

I wondered what
those eyes were thinking;
and I wondered what
they thought of me;

those amber eyes
with pupils green
housed 'neath eyebrows
arched like bridges.

A cloth of funeral black
her head enclosed;
no lips made show
to lightly smile

To smile toward
another walking by
who doubtless would
return such smile to her.

No light and carefree hair
with which the air
might freely play;
no breeze to blow the clouds away.


Sunday 24 March 2013

Pictures from Venice


I was recently in Venice. It rained most of the time I was there. Nevertheless like every other visitor my spirits were not dampened and I was eagerly out and about with my camera trying to capture an image worth a thousand words. 


A SLOW TRAGHETTO 


A SPEEDY BOAT


A HEAVY DOWNPOUR

Friday 22 March 2013

The Rat


Whenever gigantic waves power ashore many thousands of lives are turned upside down along with the mountains of debris and the missing and the injured and the dead.

There have been three gigantic waves (as opposed to merely huge or ernormous waves) in the Sendai region in the last 120 years. And of course we all remember the Boxing Day Indonesian tsunami. 

Gigantic waves are not uncommon. It is not a question of whether another one will strike. It is only a question of when and where. 

To build nuclear power stations on coastlines which are subject to the destructive power of these 40 meter high waves is not a very bright idea. 

Earlier this week at Fukushima Daiichi the engineers on site were puzzled by the sudden loss of electrical power to the spent fuel pool. After two or three days of hectic activity it was discovered that a rat had chewed through vital wires in a fuse box.

How many rats now live in the affected area is anybody's guess. Maybe it's millions. Who knows?

The poem titled The Rat is based on a sister-poem a few posts below which is titled no immediate danger the spokesman said. 

If you have read no immediate danger . . . before you read The Rat you will get a sense of what I think I have attempted. The idea of the structure of the poem came to me after visiting a George Baselitz exhibition at Vienna's Essl Museum. Baselitz is an artist known for painting some of his subjects upside down. 

The dog seen in the flames below, which George Baselitz painted in his Third Reich reflections series,  serves to highlight the invisible dangers we face today. 


The Rat

§
§
§
§
§
the ship 
on the horizon 
grows smaller 
the sailor looks 
at his digital watch 
it has stopped
the four waters 
of the apocalypse
the dark horse before 
the boiling waters 
the big wave
the thunder roar 
no immediate danger
the spokesman said 
the rat 
bites 
through the fuse box
wires
! !


WHAT WE CAN'T SEE - THAT'S THE GREATEST DANGER
DETAIL - FROM A WORK BY GEORGE BASELITZ

12 facts about Rats - taken from a Junior School text book:

1. Rats chewing through electrical cables can start dangerous fires.

2. Rats have been known to chew through dams. 

3. There are so many rats that it is thought wherever you are on land there will be a rat within 15 meters. 

4. A rat is able to climb a toilet waste pipe and swim through the u-bend to emerge in a bathroom. 

5. Water pipes and tunnels under buildings that carry sewage and electrical cables make perfect homes for rats.

6. In 1997 there were an estimated 28 million rats were living in the city of New York. 

7. In 1961 a French rat called Hector travelled into space. He returned safely to Earth.

8. Black rats arrived in Europe on ships from Asia and the Far East. 

9. Brown rats originally lived only in Eastern Asia and Japan. Now they are found everywhere on Earth except the Antarctic. 

10. Female rats are pregnant for 22 days before giving birth. 

11. One pair of brown rats can produce 15,000 descendants in one year.

12. Rats can swim for two days in open water and travel up to 2 km. 


Thursday 21 March 2013

The Easter Bunny


EASTER BUNNY NUMBER 555

The man in this marvelous painting by George Baselitz which I recently saw for the first time at the Essl Museum of Contemporary Art near Vienna was born on an Easter Saturday. He became a political leader who quickly realized that people liked to worship symbols. He took the golden cross of the sun, such as the one I saw painted on the side of a sky blue box in the tent of a Tibetan nomad on my TV yesterday evening, and being a mediocre art student in his youth, he repainted the cross of the sun as black as night and replaced the sky blue background of summer with his own  blood-red and lily-white striped background. It  wasn't long before thousands of his followers were wearing the black crosses on their armbands and obeying his every satanic whim. Number 555, in case you are wondering, is the man's official NSDAP membership card number. I would recommend anyone visiting Vienna to take advantage of the free bus which runs to the Essl Museum for there is always something of more than passing interest to see. The museum's cafe does good food too!

ps - the picture titles are mine (this post and a post above it). I hope Professor Baselitz doesn't mind. It was Renee´ Magritte who said: Paintings should have poetic titles.


Easter haiku 2




another old carriage 

requiring major overhaul 

to be fit for its purpose 



Easter haiku 1


AIRPORT LIMOUSINE 
ON ROAD LEADING TO ROME
FLIGHT: 666 

Tuesday 19 March 2013

no immediate danger the spokesman said


- Recent tsunami history -
1896 Sanriku maximum height between 35-40 meters
1923 Kanto 10-15 meters 1933 Sanriku 25-30 meters
1944 Tonokai 10-15 meters  1946 Nankai 10-15 meters
1954/5 Ansei 10-15 meters 2011 Tohoku 35-40 meters 


Big wave; thunder roar; rising.
The dark horse before the boiling waters.
The four waters of the apocalypse. A sailor
looks at his digital watch. It has stopped.
The ship on the horizon grows smaller.



Monday 18 March 2013

haiku


CHIESA DELLA SALUTE, VENEZIA 


 running before a storm 

to shelter in the church

two women cross a bridge


Apocalypse Vietnam


WAR MUSEUM - PLANNING FOR THE NEXT EXHIBITION

I was watching a 3-part documentary on television yesterday evening. It had to do with the prosecution of the Vietnam War under Lyndon B Johnson and subsequently under Richard M Nixon. The film was titled Apocalypse Vietnam. It was a most suitable title.

Apocalypse Vietnam 

- where the average age of America's Vietnam draftees was 19. Many of them were not old enough to buy alcohol or even go into a bar in their home State. But here they were in one of the most terrible wars of all time. They had to grow up very quickly. 

The drums of war
Hanging in the ropes
Under the bellies of planes

Are filled with napalm

Ubiquitous cans of Budweiser beer
And cigarettes to shake out
Condoms for the use of our boys

Five types of VD

Folding money
For Vietnamese kids
Who find mines

Tools in the war against the VC

A farmer stands
In a paddy of rice
Two 'copters approaching

He suddenly runs
Why is he running?
The agent is orange.

Machine guns are rattling
The man disappears
He might have been the VC.

The president comes

To shake many hands
There's light at the end
Of the tunnel he says

And then he resigns
Himself to his failures
The next one's elected

And carnage soon spreads
To Laos, Cambodia
And Northern Vietnam

More bombers and bombs
Are saving more lives
Of our boys on the ground and so on


Sunday 17 March 2013

Wilfred Owen's Futility


REASONS FOR WAR? HERE ARE FIVE TO GO ON WITH 


   The poet Wilfred Owen was born on 18th March 1893. He died on 4th November 1918.

The Great War, as it is called, officially ended with an armistice on 11th November 1918.

The great thing about the Great War was the number of people killed in it. The figure is ten million.

The number ten million was clearly not great enough so there had to be, just 21 years after the end of the Great War,  an even greater war in which the death toll would be 5 or 6 times greater than it was in the original Great War.

Wilfred Owen was a poet of the Great War. The original Great War that is. He didn't live long enough to report on the subsequent even greater war which was in effect merely a continuation of the original Great War. He was killed in France in the last week of the original Great War. He was aged 24.

In the preface to the collection of poems that included Futility, he wrote:

This book is not about heroes. English poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. 
Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. 
Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. 
My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The poetry is in the pity. 
Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful. 

Futility

Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know. 

Think how it wakes the seeds -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides, 
Full-nerved - still warm - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall? 
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

Owen died in an assault over the Sambre and Oise canal, near Cambrai in north-east France. His biographer Jon Stallworthy writes:

". . . he was at the water's edge, giving a hand with some duckboards, when he was hit and killed. In Shrewsbury, the Armistice bells were ringing when the Owen's front door bell sounded its small chime, heralding the telegram . . ."


What's in a Name?


DON'T BE FRIGHTENED, IT'S ONLY A WOMAN


Most business these days is done over the internet.

I was thumbing my way through a big book, a 1993 Typhoon Edition of Webster's Comprehensive Dictionary, it was a Latin phrase I was searching for, when my glance fell on a chapter headed: Business Letter Writing.

I looked at the specimen letters. They were so quaint. I really felt as if I had been transported back in time.

Here's are two examples:


Dear Mr. Magnes:
Thank you for your order for Clover Danish Blue Cheese. It is being shipped out to you today.
We enclose a catalogue of our other products. Please note that with orders of $10.00 or more, customers may receive free, their choice of a jar of Lingonberry or Currant preserves.
Yours sincerely, 
  Einar Toksvig



Gentlemen:
Thank you for your order #324 for a dozen Pop-Up Toasters. They were shipped today. The invoice is enclosed. We also enclose the catalogue on waffle irons requested in your letter.
 Sincerely yours
 Morton James


But it was the names of the businesspersons signing the letters that really intrigued me. Here's the list:

Arthur Ives
Howard Carver
A. S. Cantor
V. A. Miles
Marc Rafferty
Kenneth Miller
Seth Bellows
Charles Bloom
J. H. Hudson 
Adam Pierce
Eric Hunter
Einar Toksvig
Edward Hines
Mark Lyons
Joseph Evans
Morton James
Roger Hessian
Hiram Godkin
Martin Ullmann
David Proctor
Edmund Gates
Arthur Reinhardt
Charles U. Clifford
Robert E. Griffin
Elmer Robinson
Leon Hart
Anthony Asch
Horace Seton
Edwin Robbins
Alan W. Furness
Gabriel Harcourt
Ed Schacht
Conrad Dietrichstein
A. E. Handley
Morton James
Gail Longinetti 
Sam Laury
Norman Rich
David K. Nelson

The names of the businessmen are in white. The names of the unknown gender businesspersons are in yellow and the names of the businesswomen are in green.  You will notice that there is only one person identifiable as a woman in the whole list.

The next chapter in my book is headed Glossary of Terms Commonly Used in Business and Formal Correspondence. Perhaps there's a potential poem gestating somewhere between Abstract of Title and Zoning just dying to be born.

I will take a look and maybe we will find it.


Friday 15 March 2013

Old Soldiers Never Die


they merely skype as arranged over beer and crisps

soldiers are apt to reflect growing old

ordinary chaps at opposite ends of an ordinary world

and a war that was fought

long ago somewhere else



they google the fog and the froth

and recall the arrows

and the lines in the dirt

running over the maps -

it was a time when spam was a meal in a tin




Footnote: Spam, as a foodstuff, remains popular today, according to a Wikipedia entry I just checked out. Personally, I have the impression that people devoured more tins of the meaty pink rectangles in the 1950's and '60's; in the days before freezers and fridges,  and that sales plummeted following a Monty Python sketch. Of course I admit that I may be wrong. It may be that I am moving in non-spam circles. It is certainly a popular dish in Hawaii where it is reckoned that the annual consumption of spam on one of the islands is an amazing 16 tins per stomach. I expect they serve it with pineapple.

Thursday 14 March 2013

On Examining Ruins


And again this morning
I step into my white overalls
And pull them on.

I pull on my boots
And the heavy gloves.
I lower my goggles.

A buzzer sends us to work.
Now I flick the switch
On the portable box

Strapped to my chest.
It crackles with noise.
The noise reminds me

Of the rattle of teeth
In a plastic egg timer
Unwinding and

Returning to zero.
  Often I think
Of our baby Taniskai

Biting his favourite green key
On its clear plastic ring.
Maybe tomorrow

They will let me go home.


ONE OF MANY RADIATION MAPS
PUBLISHED  AFTER THE FUKUSHIMA
EXPLOSIONS

*Taniskai is a Japanese writer admired by Henry Miller for  Diary of a Mad Old Man and The Key.

Japan, as all the world knows, is a country prone to strong and frequent earthquakes. But how often do these occur? Can we predict when the strong quakes will happen? To answer these questions I consulted the Japan Quakes Live Map (it's in my LINKS) and examined their Daily Energy Release Chart.

The red line on the Japan Quakes Live graph shows the daily energy released by earthquakes in Japan for each day since the Fukushima disaster took place, that is since 11th March 2011.

For my starting point I took the date 8th June 2011. On this day there was no significant earthquake activity. By this date the aftershocks from 3rd March's 9.0 earthquake had ceased and the graph had settled into a wavy line of peaks and troughs.

I decided for the purpose of my exercise that a Daily Energy Release equivalent to a 6.5 Earthquake was the proper marker. I had read somewhere that nuclear power plants like Fukushima were built to withstand earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 and I thought that anything approaching this, i.e. 6.5 or stronger was of interest to me.

I then tabulated all the dates with a 6.5 or greater energy release. Here is the result:

Japan Earthquakes - 
Daily Energy Release of 6.5 or greater during the period 8th June 2011 to 14th March 2013.

23rd June 2011 - 6.71

10th July  2011 - 7.00

17th Sep  2011 - 6.78

01st Jan 2012  - 6.80

14th Mar 2012 - 6.93

20th May 2012 - 6.50

07th Dec 2012 - 7.31

02nd Feb 2013 - 6.90


A POPE FOR THE POOR


THE BANKER . . .


. . . AND THE POOR

A new way of doing  

God's business on Earth 

May be a blessing on the poor


The new leader of the Roman Catholic Church has taken the name of Francis. Whether this name relates to Saint Francis of Assisi or to Saint Francis Xavier or to both of these saints is not immediately clear. All will become clear as time unfolds. On Pope Francis's watch the poor may yet inherit, if not the Earth, at least a significant portion of the contents of the Vatican Bank. We live in wholly interesting times. 



Tuesday 12 March 2013

Chernobyl 27 years, Fukushima 2 years . . .




A total of 2,328 doctors were signatories to the full page International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War petition titled Energiewende (Energy Change) published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a German broadsheet newspaper, last weekend.  

Chernobyl 27 years on. 

"Cancer of the thyroid and leukemia were omnipresent in adults and children four years after the catastrophe. The Europe wide consequences of the Chernobyl radiation were calculated with painstaking diligence: 1.6 million additional deaths; and of the 800,000 Chernobyl 'liquidators' more than 125,000 are no longer alive. Many hundreds of thousands of liquidators are seriously ill. The infant mortality rate is higher and birth defects are increasing with every generation." 

Fukushima 2 years on. 

"Thyroid disorders and growths are present in 35% of children in Fukushima Prefecture, normally at this age would be rare. Thyroid cancers are expected to appear in the years 2014/15. Leukemia sometime later. In December 2011, nine months after the catastrophe, there was an increase in infant mortality in Japan and the birth rate had fallen significantly. 

"Worldwide, after Fukushima, there were some 430 nuclear power stations in service. They are the door openers for the nuclear weapons. The next nuclear disaster is only a question of time. The population cannot be protected. Catastrophe plans remain a patchwork. There are no medical cures or medicines against radiation. Only prevention is possible. 

"In Germany, following the Fukushima catastrophe, eight nuclear reactors were immediately taken out of service. The last nine must follow quickly."  


Saturday 9 March 2013

Fukushima: Two Years On (with updates and artrant link)


WATCHING THE ARTRANT VIDEO: 'UP YOURS'

And so, as they say,  in two days it will be exactly two years since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant reared its monstrous heads from the debris of a giant tsunami. Only a fool, or a team of fools, would build a nuclear power plant comprising six nuclear reactors with used fuel rods stored in tanks exposed to the air on a beach in one of the most active earthquake zones in the world, and on a coastline subject to gigantic land-invading waves. Or so any intelligent person would think. The problem is not so much Fukushima, for that problem will be "cleaned up in forty years" according to TEPCO at a cost of "$600 billion" but Japan itself. With fifty-six nuclear power plants sitting on or near active fault lines the future for the whole world is in the balance. Our very existence as a species may depend on what is happening with three tectonic plates converging under the Sea of Japan. In Japan there's enough plutonium and uranium to wipe us all off the map. If not immediately, apart from those in the vicinity, this will be due to horrible cancers and mutations developing in the course of time. It is probably too late to close the nuclear door. That apocalyptic horseman has already bolted. But maybe we could close it anyway. If only that someone somewhere may one day say: Well, at least they did something.

Additional Notes:

"People from the nuclear evacuation zone are stigmatized in the rest of Japan" Hirooki Yabe (psychiatrist).

The number of affected people now living in emergency accommodation two years after the tsunami is 320,000 of which 210,000 are from the radiation evacuation zone. - official figures -

"Thousands of nuclear refugees have to pay off the credit taken out on their now worthless properties." Yasuhi Tadano (lawyer).

How to submit a claim for compensation:  Send for the 156 page instruction book containing advice and instructions on filling in the 60 page application form.  Don't forget supporting receipts. Send everything to the 12,200 persons employed by Tepco to work out the correct compensation.

Mr K, 57, offered the equivalent of €5,500 for his 300 sq meter home in Okuma, 3 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi.

Mr N offered €117 a month towards petrol costs to travel to his farm and attend to his crops and animals. "This has no sense," said the farmer "for no-one will buy anything from me."

Mr K, kidney problems, is receiving nothing.


Reminder:

The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident is scheduled for 11th, 12th, March 2013 at the New York Academy of Medicine.

Thursday 7 March 2013

To say this about Wales . . .




To say this about Wales . . .

We're a remnant 
Of land 
And a people.

Our language 
Was compost 
For graveyards. 

Our farm hands
And labourers 
 Were shipped to the gas

Of the Somme.
It's a place 
Not even in Wales

To perish like rats 
For a peace 
That never could last.

And I'm torn 
To know
Why? 

In
The rain 
On the wind  

Now
Over the hill 
And under one remnant

. . . the dragon


Missing the train


the explosions
had shaken the street
at the edge
of the village

and they had waited
until there was silence
again
and the drone of the plane

was definitely gone
before they crept out
from their shelter
under the dining room table

granddad
and grandma
and all of the family
eight persons in all

granddad
ran out
dressed in his nightshirt
to check on our neighbours

the elderly couple
were both in their eighties
and he found them
asleep

with their arms
around each other

the wreckage
of their house
was next to the field
by the railway


Wednesday 6 March 2013

Jesus in Rome


Imperia and the Council of Constance 

Say Jesus appeared on Earth tomorrow
And rode on a donkey to Rome
What would he see?

What would he do?
What would he say?
I am tempted to ask.

Would Jesus overturn the tables?
Would he close the bank?
Give unto God that which is God's and unto Rome that which is Rome's.

What would he do with the gold and the treasure?
Would he give it all back to those from whom it was taken?
Thou shalt not steal.

And then the burning question: Suffer little children to come unto me.
Would he order all to be revealed?
Thou shall not bear false witness.

When Jesus appears on Earth tomorrow
And rides on the donkey to Rome
What will he say?

What will they do?


Tuesday 5 March 2013

Grim visaged



waterfall's milky flow
 and on the rocks the hollow eyed
and grim visaged


I took the above photograph in 2012 in the Brandnertal, a narrow culd-de-sac valley in Austria. I looked at the image again today and I was astounded to see a grim visage in the upper/left/centre of the picture. The hollow eye sockets, the bulbous nose, and thin grim lips, the strong chin, all clearly visible below the reptilian forehead. At least in my book. It's like finding shapes in clouds. In rocks, they last longer. The age of the face in the rock is anyone's guess. It looks very ancient. From the stone age one might say. The question is: Was it made by man or nature?

It is for my money an amazing creation. And to think it was carved by nature using natural flowing water and without any tools. If a sculptor created such a face in stone, or wood, or bronze he could rightly be proud of it. It would fetch much money at auction. But this face? It is the face of nature seen in a rock, and such faces are to be found all over the world. They are priceless but at the same time they are of no monetary value for they are not created by the human mind for the human mind. They are merely natural phenomena as we like to say.

The fern clad face in foreground profile could be a work in progress, since we like to think in these terms.


Friday 1 March 2013

Mr Fenn's treasure hunt poem


I have just discovered Forrest Fenn's intriguing website where he has placed a poem containing nine clues to the whereabouts of a bronze chest filled with more than a million dollars worth of gold coins, jewels and other precious items collected over a lifetime.

Mr Fenn composed the poem believing he was about to die.

Three years ago he concealed his treasure somewhere in the Rocky Mountains after he was diagnosed with cancer. And the treasure is still out there waiting to be discovered.

But the best news for Mr Fenn comes from his doctors; he has beaten the life threatening disease.

If you live too far away to join the hunt you may still puzzle over the poem and read what others have to say about it. Here's your LINK to the starting line at the Old Santa Fe Trading Company.

 A golden sun in Gargano, Italy