* again because I wrote about it here too

I was ruminating this morning that it was a long time ago now that I gave up on fairy tales. Princes & princesses & knights in shining armour coming to the rescue; all that kind of thing.

I mean…

So I don’t tell myself fairy stories any more. I no longer entertain big expectations of any kind, really. (I said to someone recently we should probably all put up a sign over our kitchen sink that says “No expectations” & we’d probably all be disappointed much less frequently. You know??)

So. No white knights. No “happily ever after.”

I do still believe in miracles, though. Miracles, transformations…& even just common, garden variety possibility.

Only because it makes its lovely presence felt every single day.

Here are a couple of teeny-tiny examples.

Yesterday I awoke feeling un-energetic & discouraged, so much so I decided I’d have a “bed day.”  But after a few hours working on my laptop, I got feeling pretty good, actually. So I got up, finally, had a long walk, did some necessary errands & tasks, & wound up having an all-around pretty productive day.

Today, somewhat miraculously (having not set my alarm clock the way I had 2 nights ago, & merely intending to awaken early this morning), I did in fact wake up early, felt good & felt up to the early task I wanted to do, & here I am now, at the laundromat, while my sleeping bag sloshes around inside the washing machine, getting itself clean.

Do you have any idea how long it’s been since that sleeping bag was washed??? (Thankfully, you don’t. My mother was turning over in her grave.)

In my little world, this classifies as a miracle. A small one to be sure, but still…

I bet all kinds of things are possible…you know??

Janet

p.s. for sure there is plenty afoot in the world about which one can feel angry, sad, despairing, & my own most recent blog posting is about what to do (while the sky is falling), & it is, it is! It’s also true, as the wise folks say, “Pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice.” I’m firmly in charge of my own happiness, & if I’m cuckoo because such “little” things as waking in an energetic mood & going to the laundromat early to wash my sleeping bag make me feel good, then I am happy to be considered cuckoo! Maybe being “cuckoo” isn’t such a bad thing after all, hmmm?

‘Quote of the day’: “You discover that others aren’t afraid of your pain for the world, and you witness theirs. Then you can dare to hope something for humanity and for what we can do together. When we unblock our despair, everything else follows – the respect and awe, the love.” – John Seed, rainforest activist (in talking about despair & empowerment work)

A few relevant quotations:

“Men are not troubled by things themselves, but by their thoughts about them.” – Epictetus

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.” – Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose

“The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” – Victor Frankl

“Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued. It must ensue. And it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.” – Victor Frankl

“Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.” – G. K. Chesterton 

Is there any need to debate whether the sky is actually falling??

Surely not.

For my part, it’s not even just that the sky is falling, it’s also what’s in the sky as it falls. What’s in the air. Ever since Fukushima blew its lid (it’s still blowing its lid – go here if you want regular updates on what’s going on over there), the idea of our being in the “end times” is so much more in my face than it was before March 11, 2011.

Okay. Well. So, some musings on what we do while the sky is falling.

I’m re-reading the novel The Cellist of Sarajevo (by Steven Galloway), & the character Dragan (on page 126), when asked why the cellist is risking his life every day to play his cello on the street in the spot where 22 people were killed while waiting at a bakery to buy bread, says to Emina, “Maybe he’s playing for himself. Maybe it’s all he knows how to do, and he’s not doing it to make something happen.” ‘And he thinks this is true. What the cellist wants isn’t a change, or to set things right again, but to stop things from getting worse. Because, as the optimist in Emina’s mother’s joke said, it can always get worse. But perhaps the only thing that will stop it from getting worse is people doing the things they know how to do.’”

Maybe that’s what all of us are doing? Trying to keep things from getting worse? So we’re all just keeping on doing what we know how to do??

Some of us know how to lie & cheat & rape & poison & pollute the Earth in sundry really outstanding ways – so we keep on doing that. (Oops. That is making it worse.)

Some of us – in the nuclear industry, say – know how to make big salaries (really, REALLY BIG salaries, in some cases(1)) creating & selling nuclear energy (all the while also making bomb ingredients as we do so) in uniquely Earth-destroying ways – & bafflegabbing & bullshitting & nukespeak-ing our way into convincing even people who really are smart enough to know better(2) that this is all fine & reasonable stuff to keep on doing, as our planet dies screaming all around us. (Oops. That’s making it worse too.)

& some of us are very-very good at only paying attention to our very own little lives (which seem very-very BIG to us, of course), & wearing either rose-coloured glasses (or maybe dark blindfolds) & pretending nothing is happening – the Earth & our species are not being ravaged before our very eyes – & doing nothing whatsoever to help change this trajectory. (So sorry to repeat myself, but this too is making things worse.)

So that’s what they are going on doing

&…I’m running out of breath now so I’ll just say what I know how to do

which is

• be a Mom
• & an environmental activist
• & a writer/blogger
• & a person who walks every day 
• & does fairly well at living “in the moment”
• & remains ridiculously enthusiastic about sharing inspiring quotations
• & occasionally feels fear & despair

as our beautiful planet is trashed within an inch of its life,

& while the weather gets WEIRDER by the day (& the bees & frogs & sundry other creatures disappear),

& we all (or some of us, anyway) wait for yet more disaster to befall us all from the (unprecedented) nuclear disaster that is Fukushima

& the sky is falling

it’s been falling all my life, though I didn’t know that when I was a little kid, I had no idea how f*cked-up everything was…& is…& oh my oh my oh my oh my oh my

what are we do to while the sky is falling???

Janet

p.s. & we can change (I could write another day about the many small & bigger ways in which I as an individual have changed, proving that indeed we can change) or at least we could have chosen to change … only most of us apparently have not chosen this…

& it’s all really quite-quite heartbreaking, isn’t it???

p.p.s. & on our watch…

(Unless you believe we humans are about to be “transformed” – like my “spiritual” friends do. Sure hope they are right!!!)

p.p.p.s. somewhat dated post here is called ‘What is a person to do??’ Some good quotations & links there…

‘Quote of the day’ with this post:

Hieroglyphic Stairway

it’s 3:23 in the morning 
and I’m awake because my great great grandchildren 
won’t let me sleep my great great grandchildren 
ask me in dreams what did you do while the planet was plundered?
 what did you do when the earth was unraveling?

 surely you did something when the seasons started failing? 
as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?
 did you fill the streets with protest when democracy was stolen? 

what did you do 
once
 you 
knew?         drew dellinger
©2003

A Few Other Relevant Quotations:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the one most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

“The hard part about change, is, well…you have to actually change.” – Jon Cooksey, Director of ‘How to Boil a Frog’

“Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” – Apple marketing phrase (apparently)

“The world will change for the better when people decide they are sick and tired of being sick and tired of the way the world is, and decide to change themselves.” – Sidney Madwed (quoted in Speak Peace in a World of Conflict – What You Say Next Will Change Your World, by Marshall B. Rosenberg)

“I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.” – Georg Lichtenberg

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” – George Bernard Shaw

“The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who, in times of crisis, preferred to remain neutral.” – Dante, in The Inferno

“You discover that others aren’t afraid of your pain for the world, and you witness theirs. Then you can dare to hope something for humanity and for what we can do together. When we unblock our despair, everything else follows – the respect and awe, the love.” – John Seed, rainforest activist (talking about despair & empowerment work)

** lots of quotations about change here

*** lots of quotations period here 

(1) For example, Mr. Albert Sweetnam of OPG (Ontario Power Generation), whom I encountered during the 2011 hearings on the proposed “new build” at Darlington, earns (or should I say is paid) $720,000 per year for his efforts. Look it up! (Mr. Tom Mitchell, OPG’s head honcho, is down for $1,824,000.04. You can look that up too).

(2) As S. David Freeman, former head of the Tennessee Valley Authority memorably said recently, “Anyone who would substitute plutonium for carbon is an idiot.”

A couple friends & I attended a U.S. Sierra Club No Nukes conference in Washington, D.C. last weekend. Hooey!! So glad we went. We heard an amazing line-up of speakers lay out the reasons why nukes are uneconomic, unsafe, unhealthy & just plain a disaster whichever way you slice it.

Not gonna lie to you, there is not much “good news” to share on the nuke front. But then I guess I was aware of that when I left home.

Anyway, I’m going to just list a few bullet point observations about the conference, some good quotations made & leave you with a few good links.

Observations:

• The crowd was a little on the not-so-young side. Where are the youth??
• Ouch! Nuclear energy is a bomb!! (Oh, I’d already known that)
• All Japan’s 54 reactors are now shut down. Yay!
• One reason Europeans are ahead of us in their thinking? 40% of their land was/is contaminated by Chernobyl fallout.
• Operating reactors must be shut down!! They are accidents waiting to happen.
• Very important for individual states to take action locally.
• We need to do better at sharing the success stories of the anti-nuclear movement.
• To win over men, you talk $$$. To win over women, you talk health & safety.
• There are phenomenal people doing incredible work all over the U.S. Hooey!!

A short list of nonsense visited upon us by the nuke industry:

• Outright lies, deception & bullshit
• Pretending there are “safe” levels of exposure when it’s been known for decades that this is not so
• Regulators utterly captives of the industry (good article on this here )
• Labelling of radioactive materials is mostly B.S. (e.g. so-called “low level” waste can contain plutonium.???????? Useful to recall, low level does not mean low risk!)
• Changing regulations to increase allowable levels of radiation exposure – to workers, the public, in Fukushima? Children…
• Failing to mention internal exposures, the “gift that goes on giving,” one might say
• Not monitoring for fallout in the U.S. post-Fukushima (monitors were simply turned off. Results would have been too revealing)
• Food chain contamination not being measured, mentioned or publicized

Good Quotes (also added in at the top of the Nuke Quotes list here ):

• “Anyone who would substitute plutonium for carbon is an idiot.”
• “We have to focus on the existing nuclear plants & kill them before they kill us.”
• Regarding nuclear waste: “The trash man still hasn’t come.”
• “We ought to be alarmists because there is something to be alarmed about!”
• “The NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] is giving out 20-year [nuclear plant license] extensions like they’re Valentines.”
• On the NRC: “1 regulator & 4 industry stooges.”
• Invites anti-nuclear activists to “Become rabble-rousers again!”
• “We need the music of people being afraid of this.” (referring to nuclear energy)
• “We can win this fight if we make it a fight!”
• “We’re not talking enough about our successes.” (e.g. Texas is doing hugely well with wind power. Why don’t we all know this??) – all of these by David Freeman (former head of the Tennessee Valley Authority).
• “Engineers create one problem to solve another.” – Arnie Gundersen
• “Eat your salmon now.” – Arnie Gundersen [because the radiation being poured into the ocean from the Fukushima reactors is going right into the aquatic food chain.]
• “The people that are saying we need nuclear power & we have the technology to safely store nuclear waste for 250,000 years are the same ones who claim that we can’t use solar because we have no way to store the electricity overnight! If we have the technology to do one, we ought to be able to figure out the other.” – Arnie Gundersen, Fairewinds Associates [I didn’t hear him say this at the conference, but it’s quoted on the Beyond Nuclear site on the date I recorded the conf. quotes]
• “This is about addressing tyranny. Take the tyrant down!” – Paul Gunter 
• “Tritium is bad for sperm.” – Diane D’Arrigo (NIRS, Nuclear Information & Resource Service )

** so many others I ought to have recorded from the many, many knowledgeable, articulate speakers 

Useful Links:

• Alliance for Nuclear Accountability 
• Beyond Nuclear 
• Fairewinds
• No Nukes News – new issue served up weekly
• Nuclear Information & Resource Service (NIRS)
• Sierra Club &/or Facebook  (no need to be a S.C. member to take part!)
• Uranium Watch 

** Note: there are many other anti-nuclear groups listed here

• Fukushima Tomato Mutation
• Frying Dutchman ‘Human Error’ – must-watch video!!

Janet

‘Quote of the day’: “Anyone who would substitute plutonium for carbon is an idiot.” – S. David Freeman, former head of the Tennessee Valley Authority

I always get a kick out of noticing those ‘No Exit’ signs you see on some “dead end” streets.

I always think, “Horsefeathers; of course there’s an exit.”

I’ve often enough felt as though I was boxed into a corner – that there was no hope. No exit.

But things always open up again. Sometimes fast, sometimes not as fast as I might like.

Not sure what the options are ahead for us, we human beans on Planet Earth. With toxic, polluted air, water & earth all around us, what are we to think? What are we to do??

My “spiritual” acquaintances believe a huge “shift” in consciousness is happening, or coming. They see transformation ahead.

Sounds cool!

I am seemingly unable to buy into their vision.

But then, I know I don’t know or understand or grasp everything. Or even maybe very much at all.

So on I go, one step at a time, a day at a time. Enjoying being “here & now,” here & now (mostly).

Somehow things…proceed.

Right?

So phooey to “no exit.”

Just exit unknown, maybe.

Janet

‘Quote of the day’ with this post: “You must locate your deepest private feelings – philosophical, religious, spiritual – and then decide to live out these beliefs in a commensurate way, in public, as much as possible without compromise.” – Marv Davidov, peace activist (quoted in Nukewatch Quarterly, Spring 2012 issue)

From postcards (or bookmarks or posters) from the Syracuse Cultural Workers (a most awesome group with a ton of very cool products!):

How to Build Community

• Turn off your TV
• Leave your house
• Know your neighbors
• Look up when you are walking
• Greet people
• Sit on your stoop
• Plant Flowers
• Use your library
• Play together
• Buy from local merchants
• Share what you have
• Help a lost dog
• Take children to the park
• Garden Together
• Support Neighborhood Schools
• Fix it even if you didn’t break it
• Have Pot Lucks
• Honor Elders
• Pick Up Litter
• Read Stories Aloud
• Dance in the Street
• Talk to the Mail Carrier
• Listen to the Birds
• Put up a Swing
• Help Carry Something Heavy
• Barter For Your Goods
• Start A Tradition
• Ask A Question
• Hire Young People for Odd Jobs
• Organize a Block Party
• Bake Extra and Share
• Ask For Help When You Need It
• Open Your Shades
• Sing Together
• Share Your Skills
• Take Back the Night
• Turn Up The Music
• Turn Down The Music
• Listen Before You React To Anger
• Mediate A Conflict
• Seek To Understand
• Learn From New and
Uncomfortable Angles
• Know That No One is Silent
Though Many Are Not Heard
• Work To Change This

How To Build Global Community

• Think of no one as “them”
• Don’t confuse your comfort with your safety
• Talk to strangers
• Imagine other cultures through their poetry and novels
• Listen to music you don’t understand
• Dance to it
• Act Locally
• Notice the workings of power & privilege in your culture
• Question consumption
• Know how your lettuce and coffee are grown: wake up
and smell the exploitation
• Look for fair trade and union labels
• Help build economies from the bottom up
• Acquire few needs
• Learn a second (or third) language
• Visit people, places, and cultures – not tourist attractions
• Learn people’s history
• Re-define progress
• Know physical and political geography
• Play games from other cultures
• Watch films with subtitles
• Know your heritage
• Honor everyone’s holidays
• Look at the moon and imagine someone else,
Somewhere else, looking at it too
• Read the UNs Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Understand the global economy in terms of
people, land, and water
• Know where your bank banks
• Never believe you have the right to anyone else’s resources
• Refuse to wear corporate logos: defy corporate domination
• Question military/corporate connections
• Don’t confuse money with wealth, or time with money
• Have a pen/email pal
• Honor indigenous cultures
• Judge governance by how well it meets all people’s needs
• Be skeptical about what you read
• Eat adventurously
• Enjoy vegetables,
beans and grains in your diet
• Choose curiosity over certainty
• Know where your water comes from
and where your wastes go
• Pledge allegiance to the earth; question nationalism
• Think South, Central, and North – There are many Americans
• Assume that many others share your dreams
• Know that no one is silent though many are not heard
• Work to change this

p.s. this post follows up on the one called ‘Community‘ that I did recently.

p.p.s. & building community is kind of the opposite of turning our backs (which I was talking about in my previous post), isn’t it??

p.p.p.s. you can find some quotations about community in the ‘Quotation Central!‘ section.

‘Quote of the day’ with this post: “What’s really important is not what’s wrong, but what is right… No community was ever built on the needs and problems of its people. It has always been built on their gifts and capacities, and the use of the assets that are there…” – Professor John L. McKnight, Director of Community Studies, Northwestern University, Illinois

So, I’m reading this novel by Russell Banks called The Reserve, & it’s my 2^nd Russell Banks in a row (1st one was Lost Memory of Skin & is a humdinger!).

& early on in this novel a/the main character (too soon for me to know if he is a or the main character) gets into a big ugly scene & reflects immediately afterward that it was so-and-so (a woman)’s fault for having turned her back on him.

That line hit me with a wallop & I recalled a memorable scene with an old boyfriend that involved one of us turning our back on the other, resulting in a big dramatic rather soap opera-ish scene & ugh how I dislike that soap opera feeling coming over me, all that drama drains the energy out of me like crazy…

&/but I’m willing to bet we could all muse some on personal instances of key figures in our lives having turned their backs on us, one way & another, & it would be easy to go down a very “Oh poor me” rabbit hole, hmmm? Yup. Yup-yup-yup. Betcha most of us could do that, real easy.

But we could all also muse instead on how we have all turned our backs on so many-many-many important & worthy things/people/places/situations…as individuals, as a culture, society, civilization, call it what you will.

You get what I’m sayin’?

I don’t need to paint the picture…do I??

There’s just a very great deal we have turned our backs on, I’m thinkin’.

Sadly,

Janet 

p.s. with gratitude to Russell Banks for his thoughtful, provocative novels!

‘Quote of the day’: “You can describe the predicament that we’re in as an emergency, and your trial is to learn to be patient in an emergency.” – Wendell Berry

Runner-up Quote: “Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.” – Buddha

<April 28/12.>  I often think the “little” things in life are really the big things. Also, that since we can’t count on the big ones to go our way, we might as well learn to celebrate the “little” ones.

Here’s a collection of “small” things giving me pleasure on this 2-days-past-Chernobyl-26th anniversary, an unseasonably chilly (but sunny) Saturday.

• Gratifying gratitude session on waking
• Early rising & early achievement of some worthwhile tasks
• Hanging laundry on the outdoor clothesline (love that free solar & wind-drying action )
• People who listen when we are talking & don’t interrupt every 2.5 seconds
• Simple friendliness (people who don’t know me saying a cheery “good morning” on my walk)
• Nice walk
• Sun & blue sky   
• Being able to be fully present in this moment
• Seeing something very cool in a store window & feeling no need whatsoever to buy or own it
• Recognizing a hard emotional truth & feeling very calm about it
• Feeling cheerful & energetic 

Janet

‘Quote for the day’: “In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy.” – Albert Clarke quoted in Speak Peace in a World of Conflict – What You Say Next Will Change Your World, by Marshall B. Rosenberg

Runner-up quote:  “The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.” ~ F.H. Bradley

p.s. lotsa great quotations about happiness here

Recently had a funny conversational exchange in a bank with a “stranger” who referred to himself as a slow learner.

I guess I could go on at some length on that topic.

What I’d just been mulling over in my mind was mind-made problems. As in, all our problems are mind-made. Heck, the atom bomb was a thought before it became a concrete reality.

I’d even had the thought that I sometimes get the sense that some people’s minds are actually virtual (self) torture chambers. You know??

The smart folks say our feelings are preceded by thoughts. In other words, it is our thoughts that lead to our feelings – not the other way around.

I meet the occasional person who seems to have a torture chamber inside her or his head. It’s easy to become impatient with such individuals (true confession: sometimes I do) & one can also feel considerable compassion (especially if one makes a point of thinking about being compassionate!)

Because hey! Who among us has never found our mind acting as our own personal torture chamber?? I mean honestly…

So. I could say more about problems being mind-made, & torture chambers inside heads & out, & slow learners (this latter is a pretty large club, hmmm? I myself have had a very-very long-time membership), but Life calls.

Janet

p.s. right off the top, a few writers whose books spring to mind (there’s that word again) on mind-made troubles & healing:

• Eckhart Tolle & A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose 
• Byron Katie & Loving What Is – Four questions that can change your life 
• Joanna Macy: any of her works (her Web site is here )
• Don Miguel Ruiz & his The Four Agreements – A Toltec Wisdom Book 
• Marshall B. Rosenberg’s work on nonviolent communication (books & DVDs) – e.g. Speak Peace in a World of Conflict – What You Say Next Will Change Your World & Nonviolent Conversation – A Language of Life (go to Sounds True & search on his name) 

p.p.s. I’ve been observing recently that some people seem to have a bit of a mean streak. When I muse a bit on their past, I’m soon able to get some insight about where the mean streak probably originated.

p.p.p.s. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a single individual who didn’t have something useful to teach me.

p.s. # 4: these last 2 p.s.’s may seem a bit like non-sequiturs to you. They sort of do to me, too. But I think I’ll leave them here. What the heck.

‘Quote of the day’ with this post: “What lies behind us and what lies ahead are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

A few other Emerson gems (just because I can):

“A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

“Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit… No truth so sublime but it may be trivial tomorrow in the light of new thoughts.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Do not follow where the path may lead…go instead where there is no path, and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)

“Life consists of what a person is thinking about all day.” ~ Emerson

“The crime which bankrupts men and nations is that of turning aside from one’s main purpose to serve a job here and there.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

On Success: “To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of oneself; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived…this is to have succeeded.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

** note: heard recently that this was probably not actually said by Emerson. Ah well. So many quotations are mis-attributed, hmmm?

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nothing great has ever been achieved without enthusiasm.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Non-sequitur quote: “Men honour what lives within their sphere of knowledge, but do not realize how dependent they are on what lies beyond it.” – Chuang-tse (quoted in “The Te of Piglet,” by Benjamin Hoff)

 ** Re-posted with permission. Wish I could take credit for this, but it’s Angela’s baby!! (see below). All No Nukes News issues posted here

No Nukes News

April 26, 2012 – Please pass this onto a friend!

On this 26th anniversary of Chernobyl, we say Chernobyl, Fukushima – never again…

Angela Bischoff warns about the dangers between nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons proliferation Audio recording of a presentation I made in Toronto to honor the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe.

Chernobyl anniversary: Time to rethink nuclear power in Canada

DON’T NUKE TO! remembers Chernobyl by taking action on Darlington 1 minute video of a banner action in Toronto

Ukraine Marks 26th Anniversary of Chernobyl ”The Chernobyl disaster underscored that mankind must be extra careful in using nuclear technologies,” President Yanukovych said. “Nuclear accidents lead to global consequences. They are not a problem of just one country, they affect the life of entire regions.” Yanukovych said 2 million people have been hurt by the tragedy and it is the state’s obligation to protect and treat them.

Canada

7 videos from the No Nukes Teach-in held in Toronto, March 18, 2012 – Presentations by Jack Gibbons, Mark Mattson, Kris Stevens, Shawn-Patrick Stensil, and Theresa McLenaghan

Fukushima revealed Canadian government’s confusion over nuclear emergency response, report says

When dealing with nuclear power, it’s time to put Ontarians’ health first Lawyers with EcoJustice say that the federal government has more looking to do in order to protect Ontarians’ health and drinking water from a plan by Ontario to build two new reactors at Darlington.

Give Green Energy a Fair Shot: Come Clean on Nuclear Costs – blogpost by Greenpeace’s Shawn-Patrick Stensil

Ontario Liberals get FIT but may still nuke green energy ” The best thing the government could do to build on the success of the Green Energy Act would be to come clean on nuclear costs. Ontarians are consistently misled on the costs of nuclear generation,” says Stensil.

Port Hope set to start ‘pushing dirt’ Four months after the federal government pledged a whopping $1.28 billion to the project, Port Hope is moving ahead with phase two of the biggest radioactive cleanup in Canadian history.

NB Power ‘recklessly’ pushed Lepreau’s refurbishment  Lloyd’s Underwriting says NB Power ‘ignored’ expert advice during refurbishment

The world 

Japanese diplomat Matsumura warns of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 high-level radioactive waste storage pool risks

How a Group of Japanese Mothers Are Saying No to Nuclear Power Well aware that fetuses, children under five, and women are at the greatest risk from radiation exposure, mothers have emerged as a powerful voice in Japan’s growing anti-nuclear movement

Global Famine After Nuclear War New study reveals that even a limited nuclear war between Pakistan and India could cause major climate change.

Nuclear irresponsibility by Gordon Edwards, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility

Tritium

Troubles with Tritium & Shield Source in Peterborough

☢ Everything You Wanted To Know About Radioactive Tritium But Were Afraid To Youtube Hilarious…

Dropping the Tritium Banner over Highway 115  (1 min. 22 sec.)

The Raging Grannies Sing the Tritium Blues in front of a tritium-contaminated apple tree (1 min. 34 sec.)

Tritium Talks by Gordon Edwards Ph.D. and Linda Harvey M.D. in Peterborough (April 11 2012) (4 min. 49 sec.)

Green Energy

Backfilling Nuclear Shutdowns with Efficiency and Renewables in Japan, Germany, and California? Rocky Mtn. Institute weighs in

Tie North to existing, new sources of power

Wind Controversy in Ontario – A research report on wind energy policy and process in Ontario This report demonstrates that the arguments made against wind, specifically the potential impact on the environment, human health, and the economics of wind power, are not supported by the available resources.

Wind Energy Blowing Away Nuclear Power Wind energy has expanded at a remarkable speed worldwide. There has been an annual 20 percent increase in wind turbine installations.

Act Now!

Order our new leaflet calling on the ON gov’t to halt their massive nuclear expansion plans – they’re free and contain postcards to Energy Minister Bentley asking him to favour lower-cost, safer and greener options. Distribute them to your friends and neighbours.

Send an email to ON Energy Minister Bentley and ask him to finish the coal phase-out in 2012 and invest in energy conservation rather than build or rebuild new nukes.

Please email Ontario’s Finance Minister Dwight Duncan and tell him that the electricity sector review must include a “value for money” analysis of future supply options.

Events

West-End Community Power Initiative Sat. April 28, 10:30 a.m. – 4 p.m., Bickford Centre, 777 Bloor Street West, Toronto. This event is a community-based initiative that will explore how local residents, businesses and organizations can find opportunities to power their communities more sustainably.

Angela Bischoff
Outreach Director
Ontario Clean Air Alliance
160 John Street, Suite 300, Toronto, Ont. M5V 2E5
Phone 416-260-2080 ext. 1
angela@cleanairalliance.org
Clean Air Alliance
Ontario’s Green Future
No Nukes News
Health Power
Coal Must Go
Facebook – Ontario Clean Air Alliance
Twitter – @NoNukeBailouts

Been meaning to do a posting about the ongoing Fukushima crisis for weeks. Today, the 26^th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, seems a good time to finally do it (also adding in at the top on May 14th & 17th).

Been hearing plenty of bad news about Fukushima for weeks now. It feels overwhelming at times…  Anyway, here are some links. I’ll add more in at the top when I hear of new ones. 

• Japanese MD: Contamination from Fukushima Daiichi now spreading all over world — There may be radiation damage in other countries (VIDEO) - May 16/12.
• Fukushima Radiation Release is Worse than You Have Been Told - What You Can Do to Protect Yourself - May 14/12.
• Interviews w. Arnie Gundersen, here + video of Gundersen talking Fukushima [May 11/12.] 
• Greenpeace International Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Update [May 11/12.]
• Urgent Request to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon [dated May 1/12]
• Epidemiology Scientist: The slower you spread radiation dose, the more effectively it produces cancer and inherited defects — “Japan is going the very best way in the world for destroying the human race” (1993 VIDEO) [Post is dated April 25/12.]
• Why Fukushima is a greater disaster than Chernobyl and a Warning Sign for the U.S. [April 20/12.]
• Fukushima Daiichi: Inside the debacle [April 20^/12.]
• Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 high-level radioactive waste storage pool at risk of catastrophic fire [April 19/12.]
• The Top Short-Term Threat to Humanity – The fuel pools of Fukushima [April 7/12.]
• Fukushima Daiichi Site: Cesium-137 is 85 times greater than at Chernobyl Accident [April 3/12.]
• What We Learned from Fukushima – Helen Caldicott talk [April 2/12 - 58 minute film] Includes: how nukes work / nuclear arms & nuclear energy = utterly intertwined / how & why sociopaths rise to the top /American politics & the arms race / why she feels women are pathetic (you gotta see her say this!!) / nukes & climate change (no carbon emissions, my ….ass!!) / so-called “routine releases” from nuclear power plants / tritium – seriously underrated risk minimized by the nuclear industry / her son’s recently-diagnosed medical condition / Los Alamos scientists & stuff they did/said when working on the bomb

• Fukushima – radiation so high even robots not safe (7.14) [March 30/12.]

** MUST-SEE YOU TUBE **: Frying Dutchman & ‘Human Error’ [Uploaded on January 16/12.] It’ll blow your mind…

Other Sites to Check Out / Follow:

• AskAboutFukushimaNow
• Beyond Nuclear
• CCNR for resources on nuclear accidents ++
• Energy News 
• ** Enformable
• ExSkf Blog
• Fairewinds Associates
• Fukushima Diary
• Fukushima Update

And an on-line book called Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War – the Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation.

** & perhaps other Facebook sites I’m unaware of. I don’t even pretend to keep up with Facebook…

Janet

P.S.This is all tough stuff, &, not gonna lie to you, it does get me down at times. I can honestly say, though, that action is always the surest antidote for despair. So I stay active. I walk most days, & I hang out with other activists (mostly those doing anti-nuclear work). It’s hard to stay in that place of despair when you’re using your voice & your life to change things. Works for me, anyway!!

P.P.S. Many good nuke-related resources/quotes here

As surely all adult Canadians know, there’s a federal election coming up on May 2^nd.

As surely all conscious Canadians also know, we’ve suffered under a right-wing, corporate agenda-driven federal government for far too long. (& they don’t give a damn about the environment, or about you & me, obviously!?!?!)

It’s a very bad scene here – which might surprise readers from other countries, many of whom often seem to think we Canadians have some kind of corner on caring & democracy. Hah! Not under Harper, we don’t. It’s bad.

It’s long past time for a change, & since we’re stuck with a faulty electoral system that allows a party that receives a tiny per centage of the vote to take power, all of us need to vote so a bad turnout at the polls doesn’t once again lead to a bad government.

Time to boot out Stephen Harper & his cronies!!

Now, I’m a Green Party voter, & have been for years. I’m not even going to pretend I am not a huge Elizabeth May fan – ‘cos I am & am proud to say so. A woman I know who is close to 90 & who, trust me, has never been a “Greenie,” once said to me “Elizabeth May is smarter than all the rest of them put together.” “Bingo,” I replied.

You can check her out here & go under the ‘Platform’ tab to see what the Green Party stands for. This is not a one-issue party!!

But I don’t expect people to just take my word on things, so I’m going to list some options you can check out – with thanks to NOW Magazine‘s April 21-27 issue. NOW is a free weekly Toronto paper that is both left-leaning & hard-hitting.

I’m enjoying its articles about the election.

• A letter-writer suggested we should not put too much faith in election polling. Apparently most have called land line phones, whereas many young people (who are progressive in their thinking) use cell phones. The letter-writer suggested that this skews results in the (Harper) Conservatives’ favour, & says that polls done by Ekos use more up-to-date technology & put the Conservatives’ #’s lower. Interesting…
• Speaking of Conservatives, here’s a site to check out! To see what kind of awful stuff our PM has done, & help motivate you to do whatever you can to get him out, check it out!
• NOW Editor/CEO Alice Klein’s article “Shake off clichés” lists a # of sites & projects to check out.
• Project Democracy “is a tool to help you determine if there is a way to “amp up” your vote and stop a Harper majority. By using a riding by riding election prediction model based on the most up to date public opinion polls, we can tell you which Party is best positioned to defeat the Conservative in your riding.” (Some neat articles on the site – including the Alice Klein one mentioned above; check it out!!)
• Lead Now.ca “is an independent, youth-led advocacy organization that helps Canadians of all generations participate in their democracy. We’re working together to build a stronger democracy that protects our environment, creates economic opportunity while increasing equality, and guarantees that everyone receives the care they need.”
• Vote Mobs are part of the Lead-Now strategy.
• Pair Vote “Our goals for this election, based on the interests expressed by pair voters are (in order of priority):
• Prevent a false majority by the Conservatives by swapping non-Conservative votes in swing ridings where Conservative party may win – this party is the least motivated to reform anything, and the only majority threat.
• Elect Elizabeth May as first Green Party member of parliament so approximately one million Canadian voters have an official voice.
• For races mostly irrelevant to these goals (NDP-Liberal, Bloc-Liberal or Bloc-NDP), swap two ineffective votes for two effective votes.
• Where this is not possible, suggest a swap that makes one vote for an ideologically closely allied party effective against one that is less allied.  (This includes swapping Libertarian and Christian Heritage votes to get effective Conservative votes while preserving the small party vote total).”
• Weekly NOW Magazine ‘Ecoholic’ columnist Adria Vasil says “It should be logistically impossible to sweep a whole planet under the rug, but politicians are brilliant magicians.” (Black magicians, hmmm?) She suggests donating to the Green Party/Elizabeth May campaign “whether you plan on voting NDP, Green or Lib in your riding” because “without her, green politics will more easily fade to black in the House after the election.”
• Catch 22 is not mentioned by Ms. Klein. From the site: “The Catch 22 Campaign is a cross-country, grassroots, multi-partisan, pro-democracy, volunteer, campaign which started in January 2010. Our goal is to provide specific voting advice to help anti-Harper voters defeat as many incumbent Conservative MPs as possible. We’ll do this by supporting the opposition candidate with the best chance to win. We have identified a limited number of close ridings where vote splitting has to be overcome. We are now registered as an official Third Party with Elections Canada so that we can advertise during the election. Catch 22 is not affiliated with any political party, candidates or organizations. Based on riding by riding analysis, we are recommending to anti-Harper voters in those target ridings who we think has the best opportunity.”

I am going to check out these initiatives more thoroughly myself. For sure, I will vote Green, though, as I have in several previous elections. Both my heart & head tell me to do so…

Well. All this has put me in the mood for a little humour. I think I’ll go to the “Shit Harper Did” site & have some chuckles. Later in the day I’ll be making phone calls to help the Green Party campaign. I sure do want to see Elizabeth May get a seat in Parliament. That would make not only my day, but my year!!

Janet

P.S. Check out the Elizabeth May endorsers’ list here If you scroll down on that page, you’ll find good articles, too. Don’t forget to check out the Green Party platform! (Vision Green covers every issue important to Canadians. Don Drummond, former Chief Economist at TD Bank, gave Vision Green high marks & said no other party has anything like it!)

P.P.S. Good comic-style-type analysis here “Which Canada Will YOU Vote for?”

P.P.P.S. Please, please, please, Canadians of all (voting) ages: Vote! Spend an hour checking out the sites listed here. There is nothing more pressing at this time than working to oust Harper!!!!

P.S. # 4: One excellent possible & relevant ‘Quote of the day’: “Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.” – George Jean Nathan, 1882-1958

<Take 1 is here >

Oh dear me.

A Conservative majority.

Canadians have just handed a majority government to Stephen Harper, a Prime Minister recently found in contempt of Parliament. (Great site for seeing lots of truth about the Harper government here)

Two Conservative MPs I particularly wondered about (Cheryl Gallant & Bev Oda) have been re-elected.

Cheryl Gallant (Renfrew County) is such an embarrassment to her own party, they keep her from attending all-candidates’ meetings! She recently insulted East Coast Canadians who’d experienced a personal tragedy in which several people were killed (go here to see the Rick Mercer rant on this). I’ve watched Ms. Gallant in action for several years (she’s a former MP of mine from my Renfrew County days) & have observed that she really only opens her mouth to change feet. She’s a disgrace to all thinking Canadians.

She has been re-elected.

Bev Oda (from Durham Region, east of Toronto) was at the centre of a scandal involving lying to Parliament – repeatedly, if I am not mistaken. (see here)

She too has been re-elected.

Canadians (but only 40% of us; more on that below) have elected a Parliament that will be dominated by a man who reminds many of us of a robot. Who is not even vaguely “democratic” – even within his own party. (As Carl Sagan asked in his book Billions & Billions – Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the New Millenium, what is it Conservatives are conserving??)

Who doesn’t give a damn about the environment, the middle class, the poor, health care…you name it.

And we elected this poor sorry excuse for a “leader.”

So.

I’m feeling a bit sick today.

Here’s the thing: I’m in very good company!!

Only 40% of those who voted actually voted for this excuse of a leader. And since the voter turnout was only 41%, Harper’s party actually was chosen by only 24% of Canada’s registered electors.

More than 70% of Canadian voters did not vote for him.

& this is what we call democracy????

In Canada we do not have proportional representation, which means that a party that receives only 40% of the vote can claim to have a “majority” government.

It will always puzzle me that Canadians turned down the chance to institute proportional representation a few years ago. (I remember the day those results came in. I never got out of my PJ’s, I was so depressed & disgusted. I bet I grumped at the cats, too. Sorry, you guys…)

Sometimes I feel ashamed to be a Canadian. We are so not the fine folks a lot of us think we are. (Not only are a lot of Canadians smug, lots of Americans seem to believe fancy things about us that would lead us to continue being smug. A) Things here are not as good as you think, folks, & B) Let’s stop being smug. It’s bad for our health!!)

But I don’t just feel ashamed to be Canadian. Sometimes I feel ashamed as a human being.

We can be a phenomenally shameful bunch.

However.

I’m a fighter. Not a victim. I’m feisty – & I have a ton of equally feisty friends & colleagues. We are not quitters.

We put oomph in the phrase “Quit bitching. Start a revolution.”

And too, a lot of the people I know – especially some who ran as candidates for the Green Party – have what I think of as palpable integrity.

I will go to my grave wondering how people with such integrity can lose to candidates whose behaviour is virtually criminal. I will also go to my grave (I expect) knowing that power corrupts. (Just recently re-read the section of that fabulous book Broken Open, by Elizabeth Lesser, in which she points out that even the finest, most “spiritual” people are subject to the “power corrupts” phenomenon, & that we might as well just all know this & count on it. Let’s hope our NDP (New Democratic Party) doesn’t get too silly with this power they have just won…)

& also, that we must be careful what we wish for. (I could say more on that topic, but another day, perhaps.)

Well. I’m off to a corner to lick my wounds. Take a bit of a pause & ponder on how & where to direct my energy in the days ahead.

But not for too long. There’s a hurting world out there to fight for!

Janet

P.S. I am, of course, DELIGHTED that Green Party leader Elizabeth May has won a seat in Parliament. Hurray, hurray, hurray!!! Elizabeth May is a blessing to us all…

Quotations Relevant Today

Tommy Douglas on Fascism: “Once more let me remind you what fascism is. It need not wear a brown shirt or a green shirt – it may even wear a dress shirt. Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.”

“Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.” – George Jean Nathan, 1882-1958

“True democracy is only possible when people have effective power over their own affairs, their own goals, and their own resources. The larger the governing unit, the less responsive it is to human needs, the more bureaucratic and inefficient its administration. Government, we must always remind ourselves, is not (or should not be) a professionally organized system to tell people how to run their affairs; it is (or should be) a means whereby people themselves are enabled to resolve matters in their own community.” ~ John Papworth in Putting Power In Its Place

“One of the things I argue in my book [A Journey Through Economic Time] is the extent to which people go to avoid rational decisions – the very large role of mental deficiency in economic history. Generally, people have been very resistant to attributing a causal role in history to stupidity.” ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.” – Pastor Martin Niemoeller (1892-1964), a Nazi victim who was imprisoned at Sachsenhausen & Dachau

“A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.” – Bertrand De Jouvenel

“Evil thrives on apathy and cannot exist without it.” – Hannah Arendt

“The modern conservative…is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” – John Kenneth Galbraith quoted in Blessed Unrest – How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being & Why No One Saw it Coming, by Paul Hawken <Pg. 115>

Check out ‘Quotation Central!’ here, for ‘Political’ & ‘Democracy’ quotes (& others!)

‘Quote for Today’ w. this post: “Cut your losses. Go where the energy is.” – Janet McNeill

We’ve all heard (Canadian Prime Minister) Stephen Harper making grand claims since the election the other day (on May 2^nd) that Canadians have given him a solid mandate to … bleah, bleah, bleah.

Fact is, only 61.4% of registered electors voted.

Conservatives got 54.2% of the seats with 39.6% of the popular vote.

As more mathematically inclined friends have pointed out to me (I am a mathophobe), 39.6% x 61.4% = 24.3%.

(Check it out here folks.)

Harper & his minions have been elected by 24.3% of registered Canadian electors. This is a majority? This is … democracy??

Remember that old saying, we get the government we deserve?

I don’t feel as though I deserve this. Do you?? (You do if you didn’t bother to vote! Apparently this was the 3^rd lowest turnout ever. Last time was worse. Don’t even come near me if you are Canadian & a registered voter & didn’t vote. Not exercising your right – & responsibility – to vote is … well, pretty near unforgivable, in my books. If all the laggards who didn’t vote had voted, maybe we would not now be facing 4 more years with a “leader” who has nothing but contempt for average Canadians. You hear what I’m sayin’??)

Go take a look here if you want to see some of what the Harper government has been up to already, in its previous term(s). You can multiply it all by … goodness alone knows what, now that they have a … “majority.”

Heaven help us all!!

(But I am determined not to “let the bastards get me down.” Life must go on! And bless me, with as many good laughs as possible! Next post may be a collection of things that will make us all laugh. We need ‘em right now!!)

Janet

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “The modern conservative…is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

As indicated here, in the post before this one, I’m determined to share some laughs on this blog, since I’m often far too serious. (Just ask my kids!!) Also, lately, I think many of us have low spirits, & low spirits are a bummer, even when they are more or less well-earned.

You know what they say about laughter & the best medicine!

So. Here’s a short list with some good laughs if you follow the links. I’ll add to it when I get new stuff. I’ll post some funny jokes & names of funny books & movies, too.

Enjoy!!

• The Perfect Song for these times!! 
• Laughing Babies!! (thanks to Straight Goods for this one!!)
• Mission Impossible Squirrel (ditto!)
• NASA satellite gag (from Montreal, I am told) – only 1 minute long
• President Obama says we do not expect harmful levels of radiation to reach the U.S. (41 seconds)
• Les érections fédérales par Harper (2.24) If you speak French (& even if you don’t!), check out our (Canadian Prime Minister) Stephen Harper repeating (one might even say, harping on) how he doesn’t want any more erections.
• Memory-a spoof by Pam Peterson (great for just about everyone I know!) (3 minutes)
• Bill Hicks on Marketing (2.43) (Lots of swearing; be forewarned!)
• For the Love of Mrs. Brown (8:42) Very funny, very naughty; not for your Mom-in-law….or, well, mine, anyway.
• Tim Conway – The Dentist (3 minutes) Hilarious!!!
• Rick Mercer & Tritium Give-Away Days (1 minute; one of my all-time favourites. Makes me laugh out loud every time!)
• Rick Mercer: Canada Explained (rather out of date now, but still fun & funny, & it does explain some of our Canadian crazinesses) (6:43)
• Rick Mercer Conservative Policy (1 minute) <Rick Mercer’s brilliance is endless, as you’ll see if you spend some time watching him! One of Canada’s national treasures!!>
• Ultimate Dog Tease (1:20) Hilarious!

Movies:

I’ve recently watched the Naked Gun movies – 3 of them. They’re a hoot!!! I loved the 2 ½ one, made in 1991, & with some great gags on environmental matters. Especially on the energy front! Can’t believe they so clearly understood & articulated so much about the corruption at the heart of the American energy scene way back when! I laughed lots….

Janet

P.S. I almost forgot to thank the several friends who have provided the funny stuff!! I sent out a request for some funny items, & several friends came through. Thanks, dudes/dudettes! Please send more!!

P.P.S. In the funny movie dept., I know I used to love, love, love Monty Python films. I think it’s about time to watch some of them again! If you don’t know them, Google ‘em. &/or Google Fawlty Towers. Hilarious skits!!

I read a lot. Lots of serious stuff, of course. Lots of fiction too. When the world is “too much with me,” as they say, I take a break by reading good fiction. (I’m picky. I don’t like junk. But I’ll spare you the names of writers I consider lousy ones. Of course too, even the good ones can be pretty serious…) If you want to see what kind of “serious” stuff I like, check out this list. And then there’s this list.

But for right now, it’s writers who write good funny stuff I’m focusing on.

Kind of sobering times in the world, eh? In a whole bunch of ways. Somehow, we have to keep our spirits up! So for a day or two, I’m focusing on funny (previous post has funny YouTubes & some movie suggestions).

This is a very preliminary list. I’ll add to it as I think of other writers who make me laugh.

Heather Mallick – Cake or Death (for a self-declared depressive, she sure is funny!!) I first mentioned her here

Bill Bryson – anything he writes! (mentioned him in this post about walking)

Dave Barry – ditto. Gotta say, his book about guys (Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys) is absolutely side-splitting! As is I’ll Mature When I’m Dead – Dave Barry’s Amazing Tales of Adulthood. This is one very funny man!! (For a Dave Barry take on the difference between men & women, go here!)

George Carlin – I’m reading his Braindroppings right now. Pretty good!

Nora Ephron‘s book I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman is pretty good! She sure does get it about necks…

Janet

P.S. a few weeks later:  I believe the ‘Quote of the day‘ I used w. this post was this Woody Allen gem: “More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” – Woody Allen

** Recently I put out a request to a bunch of friends to send me funny stuff. Here are a few good chuckles!!! (I keep adding to this, btw.) Apologies about formatting … difficulties, shall we say…

Another Lawyer Joke: A well-known divorce lawyer died & came before St. Peter. “What exactly have you done to earn eternal happiness?” asked St. Peter.  The lawyer recalled that he had given a bum on the street a quarter just the other day. St. Peter, nodding grimly, looked over to his assistant, Gabriel, & asked “Is that in the records?” Gabriel nodded, but St. Peter told the lawyer it wasn’t enough. “Wait, wait, there’s more,” said the lawyer. He told of tripping over a homeless boy the week before & giving the lad a quarter. Gabriel checked the records & confirmed the story. St. Peter contemplated & then asked Gabriel, “What should we do?” Gabriel glanced at the lawyer disgustedly. “I say we give him back his half a buck & tell him to go to Hell.”

Man: A Woman’s Best Friend

Man is a woman’s best friend.He will reassure her when she feels insecure, & comfort her after a bad day. He will inspire her to do things she never thought she could do; to live without fear & forget regret. He will enable her to express her deepest emotions & give in to her most intimate desires. He will make sure she always feels she’s the most beautiful woman in the room & will enable her to be confident, sexy, seductive & invincible.  ……………….. No, wait…… Sorry……. I’m thinking of tequila. It’s tequila that does all that.  Sorry!

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Purina nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry, and that the food is nutritionally complete, so I was going to try it again.

I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a guy who was behind her. Horrified, she asked if I’d ended up in the hospital in that condition because I had been poisoned. I told her no; it was because I ‘d been sitting in the street licking my privates and a car hit me.

I thought one guy was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard as he staggered out the door.

Why we love children:

1) I was driving with my three young children one warm summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and waved. She was stark naked! As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my 5-year-old shout from the back seat, “Mom, that lady isn’t wearing a seat belt!”

2) OPINIONS

On the first day of school, a first-grader handed his teacher a note from his mother. The note read, “The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents.”

3) KETCHUP

A woman was trying hard to get the ketchup out of the jar. During her struggle the phone rang, so she asked her 4-year-old daughter to answer the phone. “Mommy can’t come to the phone to talk to you right now. She’s hitting the bottle.”

4) MORE NUDITY

A little boy got lost at the YMCA and found himself in the women’s locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, with ladies grabbing towels & running for cover. The little boy watched in amazement, then asked, “What’s the matter, haven’t you ever seen a little boy before?”

5) POLICE # 1

While taking a routine vandalism report at an elementary school, I was interrupted by a little girl about 6 years old. Looking up & down at my uniform, she asked, “Are you a cop?” “Yes,” I answered, & continued writing the report. “My mother said if I ever needed help I should ask the police. Is that right?” “Yes, that’s right,” I told her. “Well, then,” she said as she extended her foot toward me, “would you please tie my shoe?”

6) POLICE # 2

It was the end of the day when I parked my police van in front of the station. As I gathered my equipment, my canine partner, Jake, was barking, and I saw a little boy staring in at me. “Is that a dog you got back there?” he asked. “It sure is,” I replied. Puzzled, the boy looked at me & then towards the back of the van. Finally he said, “What’d he do?”

7) ELDERLY

While working for an organization that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, I used to take my 4-year-old daughter on my afternoon rounds. She was unfailingly intrigued by the various appliances of old age, particularly the canes, walkers & wheelchairs. One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned & whispered, “The tooth fairy will never believe this!”

8) DRESS-UP

A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party. When she saw her dad donning his tuxedo, she warned, “Daddy, you shouldn’t wear that suit.”  “And why not, darling?” “You know it always gives you a headache the next morning.”

9) DEATH

While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently, his 5-year-old son & his playmates had found a dead robin. Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box & cotton batting, then dug a hole & made ready for the disposal of the deceased. The minister’s son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers & with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what he thought his father always said: “Glory be unto the Faaather, and unto the Sonnn, and into the hole he goooes.” (I want this line used at my funeral!)

10) SCHOOL

A little girl had just finished her first week of school. “I’m just wasting my time,” she said to her mother. “I can’t read, I can’t write, and they won’t let me talk!”

11) BIBLE

A little boy opened the big family Bible. He was fascinated as he fingered through the old pages. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible. He picked up the object and looked at it. What he saw was an old leaf that had been pressed in between the pages. “Mama, look what I found,” the boy called out. “What have you got there, dear?” With astonishment in the young boy’s voice, he answered, “I think it’s Adam’s underwear!”

********

These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, ‘Where am I, Cathy?’
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?

___________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

____________________________________

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he’s twenty.

___________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shitt’in me?

_________________________________________

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8^th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh…. I was gett’in laid!

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Are you shitt’in me? Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Now whose death do you suppose terminated it?

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Guess.

_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

______________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people. Would you like to rephrase that?

_________________________________________

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him!

____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Huh….are you qualified to ask that question?

______________________________________

And the best for last:

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

***

Fifty Bucks is Fifty Bucks! Ed & his wife Norma go to the state fair every year. And every year Ed would say, “Norma, I’d like to ride in that helicopter.”
Norma always replied, “I know Ed, but that helicopter ride is fifty bucks. And fifty bucks is fifty bucks!”
One year Ed & Norma went to the fair & Ed said, “Norma, I’m 75 years old. 
If I don’t ride that helicopter, I might never get another chance.”
To which, Norma replied, “Ed, that helicopter ride is fifty bucks, and fifty bucks is fifty bucks.” The pilot overheard the couple & said “Folks I’ll make you a deal. I’ll take the both of you for a ride. If you can stay quiet for the entire ride & don’t say a word I won’t charge you a penny! But if you say one word it’s fifty dollars.”

Ed and Norma agreed & up they went. The pilot did all kinds of fancy maneuvers, but not a word was heard. He did his daredevil tricks over & over again. But still not a word… When they landed, the pilot turned to Ed & said “By golly, I did everything I could to get you to yell out, but you didn’t. I’m impressed!” Ed replied, “Well, to tell you the truth,
I almost said something when Norma fell out. But you know, “Fifty bucks is fifty bucks!”

The Haircut (very timely for Canadians, post-federal election!)

One day a florist goes to a barber for a haircut. After the cut, he asks about his bill & the barber replies, “I cannot accept money from you, I’m doing community service this week.” The florist is pleased & leaves the shop.
When the barber goes to open his shop the next morning, there’s a ‘thank you’ card & a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.
Later a cop comes in for a haircut & when he tries to pay his bill, the barber again replies, “I cannot accept money from you, I’m doing community service this week.” The cop is happy & leaves the shop.
Next morning when the barber goes to open up, there’s another ‘thank you’ card & a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.
Then a Member of Parliament comes in for a haircut & when he goes to pay his bill, the barber again replies, “I can not accept money from you. I’m doing community service this week.” The MP is very happy & leaves the shop.
The next morning, when the barber goes to open up, there are a dozen MPs lined up waiting for a free haircut.

And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the citizens of our country & the politicians who run it.

BOTH POLITICIANS & DIAPERS NEED TO BE CHANGED OFTEN, & FOR THE SAME REASON

THIS IS A NON-PARTISAN JOKE THAT CAN BE ENJOYED BY All PARTIES. NOT ONLY THAT– it is POLITICALLY CORRECT!!

While walking down the street one day a “Member of Parliament” is tragically hit by a truck and dies. His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.

‘Welcome to heaven,’ says St. Peter. ‘Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we’re not sure what to do with you.’

‘No problem, just let me in, ‘says the man.

‘Well, I’d like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we’ll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven.  Then you can choose where to spend eternity’.

‘Really, I’ve made up my mind. I want to be in heaven,’ says the MP.

‘I’m sorry, but we have our rules.’

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.  The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.

Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people.

They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne.

Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly & nice guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go.

Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises …

The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven, where St. Peter is waiting for  him.

‘Now it’s time to visit heaven.’

So, 24 hours pass with the MP joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing.  They have a good time and, before he realises it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.

‘Well, then, you’ve spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity’.

The MP reflects for a minute, then he answers: ‘Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell. ‘

So St. Peter escorts him to the lift and he goes down, down, down to hell.

Now the doors of the lift open and he’s in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and rubbish.

He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more rubbish falls from above.

The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder. ‘I don’t understand,’ stammers the MP.  ‘Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there’s just a wasteland full of rubbish and my friends look miserable.  What happened? ‘

The devil looks at him, smiles and says, ‘ Yesterday we were campaigning … Today you voted.’

***

You Don’t Have To Own A Cat To Appreciate This One!  You don’t even have to like ‘em!

So we’re dressed & ready to go out for the New Year’s Eve Party. We turn on a night light, turn the answering machine on, cover our pet parakeet & put the cat in the backyard.
We phone the local cab company & request a taxi. The taxi arrives & we open the front door to leave the house.
As we walk out the door, the cat we’d put out in the yard scoots back into the house. We don’t want the cat shut in the house because she always tries to eat the bird.
My wife goes on out to the taxi, while I go back inside to get the cat. The cat runs upstairs, with me in hot pursuit.
Waiting in the cab, my wife doesn’t want the driver to know that the house will be empty for the night. So she explains to the taxi driver that I will be out soon. “He’s just going upstairs to say good-bye to my mother.”
A few minutes later, I climb into the cab. “Sorry I took so long,” I say, as we drive away. “That stupid bitch was hiding under the bed. I had to poke her ass with a coat hanger to get her to come out! She tried to take off, so I grabbed her by the neck. Then, I had to wrap her in a blanket to keep her from scratching me. But it worked! I hauled her fat ass downstairs & threw her out into the back yard! She better not shit in the vegetable garden again!”

The silence in the cab is deafening…

***

How Children Perceive Their Grandparents

1. She was in the bathroom, putting on her makeup, under the watchful eyes of her young granddaughter, as she’d done many times before. After she applied her lipstick & started to leave, the little one said, “But Grandma, you forgot to kiss the toilet paper good-bye!”  I will probably never put lipstick on again without thinking about kissing the toilet paper good-bye…

2. My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, & I told him, 62. My grandson was quiet for a moment, & then he asked, ”Did you start at 1?”

3. After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother changes into old slacks & a droopy blouse & proceeds to wash her hair. As she hears the children getting more & more rambunctious, her patience grows thin. Finally, she throws a towel around her head & storms into their room, putting them back to bed with stern warnings. As she leaves the room, she hears the three-year-old say with a trembling voice,
”Who was THAT?”

4. A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what her own childhood was like.  “We used to skate outside on a pond.  I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild raspberries in the woods.”
The little girl was wide-eyed, taking this all in. At last she said, “I sure wish I’d gotten to know you sooner!”

5.  My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, “Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?” I mentally polished my halo & I said, “No, how are we alike?”  “You’re both old,” he replied.

6. A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather’s word processor. She told him she was writing a story. ”What’s it about?” he asked. ”I don’t know,” she replied. “I can’t read.”

7. I didn’t know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point out something & ask what color it was. She would tell me & was always correct. It was fun for me, so I continued. At last, she headed for the door, saying, “Grandma, I think you should try to figure out some of these colors yourself!”

8. When my grandson Billy & I entered our vacation cabin, we kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in.  Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, “It’s no use Grandpa. Now the mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights.”

9. When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, “I’m not sure.”  “Look in your underwear, Grandpa,” he advised. “Mine says I’m 4 to 6.”

10. A second grader came home from school & said to her grandmother, “Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today.” The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool. “That’s interesting.” she said. ”How do you make babies?”  ”It’s simple,” replied the girl. “You just change ‘y’ to ‘i’ and add ‘es’.”

11. Children’s Logic: “Give me a sentence about a public servant,” said a teacher. The small boy wrote:  “The fireman came down the ladder pregnant.”  The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. “Don’t you know what pregnant means?” she asked. “Sure,” said the young boy confidently. ‘It means carrying a child.”

12. A grandfather was delivering his grandchildren to their home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog’s duties.
”They use him to keep crowds back,” said one child.
”No,” said another. “He’s just for good luck.”
A third child brought the argument to a close. “They use the dogs,” she said firmly, “to find the fire hydrants.”

13. A 6-year-old was asked where his grandma lived. ”Oh,” he said, “she lives at the airport, & when we want her, we just go get her.  Then, when we’re done having her visit, we take her back to the airport.”

14. Grandpa is the smartest man on earth!  He teaches me good things, but I don’t get to see him enough to get as smart as him!

15. My Grandparents are funny, when they bend over, you hear gas leaks & they blame their dog.

Once upon a time I had a friend who came out with this startling statement:

“I vote Conservative because my father voted Conservative.”

Yikes! OMG!

Here are the thoughts that ran through my head:

1. OMG!
2. What a moron!
3. I can’t believe you just said that!
4. Not only are you a moron for voting Conservative, you’re a moron for doing it only because your father did, & most especially,
5. You’re also a moron for admitting this to me!! You could have kept this appalling bit of stupidity under your hat!!!

We have all done (& do) & said (& say) dumb stuff (none more than yours truly, a mistress of the occasional stupid & thoughtless remark/deed).

But OMG people!

Voting for a right-wing political party that doesn’t give a darn about “regular” people – because your father did?

Haven’t we all got more brains than that??

Sheesh…

Janet

P.S. btw, here in Canada we have two right-wing political parties that don’t really give much of a darn about “average” ordinary people. Our Liberal party is only slightly less right-wing than our Conservative party. They are just wolves in sheep’s clothing – in my opinion. Admittedly, this is just my opinion, it is not the Gospel. (Although I am for sure not alone in believing this!) ** Extraordinary timing!! Friend just sent me this link. Brilliant little YouTube with a parable, using mice, about the so-called “difference” between the 2 main Canadian political parties. At the site you will see various versions of this little gem!

P.P.S. I think my own children know better than to vote for a political party only because their mother or father does so. I sure hope so! We all need to form our own opinions, especially political opinions, because the world of politics is not some big block of stone that just sits there & never changes. There are new parties & new issues & for sure, new urgency about all matters political. Right??? (& presumably, this is true wherever one lives, hmmm?)

P.P.P.S. One of my favourite political quotations is this one: “The modern conservative…is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

Here are 2 more from the same man, no political slouch…

“These are the days when men of all social disciplines and all political faiths seek the comfortable and the accepted; when the man of controversy is looked upon as a disturbing influence; when originality is taken to be a mark of instability; and when, in minor modification of the original parable, the bland lead the bland.” – Economist John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) in The Affluent Society.

“One of the things I argue in my book [A Journey Through Economic Time] is the extent to which people go to avoid rational decisions – the very large role of mental deficiency in economic history. Generally, people have been very resistant to attributing a causal role in history to stupidity.” ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist

P.S. #4: My other 2011 federal election-related posts can be found here, here & here

<April 11/11>

One day in Toronto recently, my spirits were kind of in the toilet, & the idea of “Epitaphs for Earthlings” sprang into my mind. I do try hard to keep my spirits up & not think deeply despairing thoughts about the fate of the Earth & the fate of us poor dumb humans – but from time to time, I lose the battle, at least temporarily.

This was one of those times.

Anyway, here is my little list of short & snappy possible tombstone words that creatures from outer space might see if, one day, they’re taking a look at our dear (by then human-less & sorely damaged) planet & wondering what the heck the two-legged critters did to mess it all up so badly.

• ATOMIC IDIOTS
• BIG, DUMB EGOS
• FEAR-BASED CULTURE: FAILURE WAS INEVITABLE!
• GREED GOT ‘EM
• KILLED BY THE MORE-MORE-MORE DISEASE
• MORONIC MINDS
• NEVER QUITE GREW UP, DID THEY?
• OH, THE DRAMA! (THEY DID LOVE THEIR DRAMAS!!)
• PATRIARCHY: WHAT A LEGACY!
• PRIVATE PROPERTY: AN UTTER DISASTER!
• SMARTS…BUT SO LITTLE WISDOM
• TECHNOLOGICAL OPTIMISM. OOPS!
• TERMINAL SELF-ABSORPTION DISEASE
• THEY LOST THEIR TRIBE
• THINGS, THINGS & MORE THINGS… MY, HOW THEY LOVED THEIR THINGS!
• TOO BUSY TO SAVE THEMSELVES!
• TOO MUCH HUBRIS, NOT ENOUGH HUMILITY
• TOO STUPID (& THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE SO SMART!?)
• UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES…
• WHAT A WASTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Janet

P.S. Being “down in the dumps” is a bit epidemic right now, I think. There’s no point pretending things aren’t in a horrific mess; they are! But I can’t see much point in wallowing in misery. Hence, my 3 recent postings aimed at generating laughter – here, here & here

‘Quote of the Day‘ used w. this post: “More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair & utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.” – Woody Allen

Greenpeace International is asking all human beings who want to help prevent another major nuclear disaster to take action now.

The campaign information about it can be found here

Simple enough to send a letter, hmmm?

Please do!!

& then help out more by spreading the word…okay?

Janet

P.S. There are 2 sections on this blog that pertain to nuclear issues. Proposed steam generator shipments from Canada to Sweden. Go here to find a list of postings. And here for postings about the recent Darlington hearings into the possible construction of 4 more reactors at Darlington, on the shores of Lake Ontario (& not very far from Toronto – Canada’s largest city).

But not until after you’ve signed the petition, please!!

P.P.S. An often-visited section of this blog is the ‘Quotation Central’ one. There is a collection of nuclear-related quotations here.

P.P.P.S. Here is the quotation I was searching for, to use today, but couldn’t find when I wanted it. But I love that Einstein one about evil… This one is a gem too.

WHOSE JOB IS IT?

This is a story about four people named EVERYBODY, SOMEBODY, ANYBODY and NOBODY. There was an important job to be done and EVERYBODY was asked to do it. EVERYBODY was sure SOMEBODY would do it, but NOBODY did it. SOMEBODY got angry about that because it was EVERYBODY’s job. EVERYBODY thought ANYBODY could do it but NOBODY realized that EVERYBODY wouldn’t do it. It ended up that EVERYBODY blamed SOMEBODY when NOBODY did what ANYBODY could have done.

** Posted with Dr. Edwards’ permission. May 17th was the deadline for all who took part in the recent Darlington hearings to send in final comments. ALL Darlington submissions can be found here (doing sorting on columns & using FIND will help you locate exactly what you are looking for). Lots of blog postings about the Darlington hearings here )

NOTE: These comments are a succinct indictment of nuclear energy, written by a man who is not only technically brilliant & totally understands what he is talking about (unlike many of the people who populate the nuclear industry!) but who is also articulate as heck! Highly recommended reading!!

Final Written Comments on Darlington “New Build” Project

By Gordon Edwards, Ph.D., President – Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility

The Radioactive Nub of the Problem

Every nuclear reactor is not only a machine that produces electricity, but one that mass-produces staggering quantities of highly radioactive and/or highly radiotoxic materials that did not exist in nature in measurable amounts prior to the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938.

The fission products, together with the activation products and the transuranic elements that are created inside every operating nuclear reactor, constitute a unique threat to the environment of living things and – under conditions where these materials are released in significant quantities – have the capacity to poison large land areas and large bodies of water, rendering them unsuitable for human use for very long periods of time.

This being so, there should be no more siting of new nuclear reactors on the shores of the Great Lakes or in the neighbourhood of large population centres. To advocate or authorize the building of new nuclear reactors at the Darlington site in 2011, knowing what has happened at Chernobyl and at Fukushima, is not only unwise but could be seen as a crime against future generations. It is certainly contrary to the precautionary principle.

The review panel cannot in good conscience exempt Ontario Power Generation from the responsibility of characterizing the worst possible accident scenario at the proposed new Darlington reactors – partial or complete core meltdowns coupled with partial or complete loss of containment.

To paraphrase the California Energy Resources and Conservation Development Commission, the belief that nuclear power reactors are acceptably safe is based not so much on scientific evidence as on engineering euphoria. (The Commission made a similar statement with regard to the “safe disposal” of irradiated nuclear fuel.)

Nuclear Power is Inherently Dangerous

Around the world, nuclear regulatory agencies are allied with the nuclear industry to work together in a common effort to make nuclear energy an economically viable and “acceptably” safe energy choice. Although they may try to deny it, the fact of the matter is that there is zero tolerance in these organizations for any anti-nuclear attitudes among staff, while pro-nuclear attitudes are considered normal, healthy, and even desirable. Thus there is a strong inherent bias in both the industry and in the regulatory bodies that nuclear energy is fundamentally desirable and safe.

As the President’s Commission on Three Mile Island concluded, however, the number one cause of the TMI accident was the false belief – prevalent among workers and managers alike – that nuclear energy is inherently safe. According to the Presidential Commission, headed by John Kemeny, there will surely be future meltdowns caused by a combination of human error and equipment failure unless this attitude is fundamentally changed.

Workers and managers must see nuclear power as an inherently dangerous technology. But this flies in the face of the industry PR message – aimed at the general population and their elected representatives — that nuclear energy is safe. This is the exact message emblazoned on the cover of the latest Annual Report from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) where one reads:

FACT: Nuclear in Canada is safe.

Such a message from any nuclear regulatory agency anywhere in the world would indicate that that agency is “unfit to regulate” – a term used by the British Columbia Medical Association in Chapter 22 of its publication, “The Health Hazards of Uranium Mining”.

A regulatory agency that does not even draw a distinction between a “fact” and an “opinion” is not worthy of public trust. Such an agency has chosen to act as a public relations arm of the industry rather than as an agency that seeks to enlighten the public about the very real dangers associated with nuclear power – dangers which make the existence of a federal regulatory agency necessary in the first place.

Meltdowns are Inevitable if Cooling is Inadequate

It is a fact that any nuclear power reactor currently operating will undergo a core meltdown if deprived of adequate cooling for a long enough period of time. The reason for this is that the radioactivity created by the fission process during normal operation generates about seven percent of full-power heat. For a 1000 (electric) megawatt reactor, the heat output is about 3000 (heat) megawatts. Thus, immediately after shutdown, the radioactivity in the core of the reactor continues to generate about 200 megawatts of heat – more than enough to melt the core of the reactor at a temperature of about 2800 degrees Celsius.

The essential point is that this radioactivity cannot be shut off. Thus the “decay heat” produced by the enormous inventory of radioactive poisons in the core of the reactor is literally unstoppable. As more heat is added, the temperature rises higher and higher, and the only way core-damaging temperatures can be prevented is by removing the heat just as rapidly as it is being produced. With a complete loss of on-site and off-site electrical power, thus becomes impossible. Such a circumstance, while unlikely, can be brought about by a variety of abnormal conditions, ranging from natural disaster, to acts of warfare, to deliberate sabotage, to devastating fires in the electrical systems of the reactor, to simple mechanical failures with or without human error.

Even before fuel melting begins, the cladding will begin melting at about 1200 degrees Celsius, as zirconium metal (Zr) combines with steam (H2O) in a strongly exothermic (heat-generating) reaction to produce zirconium oxide (ZrO2) and large quantities of hydrogen gas that can result in powerful explosions.

This is all very basic science, yet none of it is communicated to the public or to their elected representatives by the regulatory agency or by the proponent in language that can be easily understood by the lay person.

To withhold this information is an act of intellectual dishonesty that is unconscionable, and the panel should not accept this as permissible behaviour on the part of the proponent or the regulator.

Misuse of Mathematics Leads to Self-Deception

Nuclear proponents and regulators often rely on a technique called “probabilistic safety analysis” in order to persuade themselves and others that certain accidents — the very accidents that would make nuclear power completely unacceptable – do not need to be considered because they are so unlikely to occur.

While probabilistic safety analysis is a useful technique for comparing competing mechanical or electronic designs, or for assisting engineers to appreciate sequences of events (mechanical failures) that could have major undesirable consequences, it is entirely unscientific and a misuse of mathematics to use this technique to assert that certain types of reactor accidents are so unlikely to occur that their consequences need not be considered.

Anyone who studies probability theory knows that an event that cannot be imagined ahead of time cannot be given any probability at all. Thus the probability of such an event is, to the analyst, “ZERO”.

Probability theory begins by creating a real or imaginary list of all possible outcomes that can be foreseen. This is called the Sample Space. Then the analyst assigns probabilities to each outcome by estimating its expected frequency of occurrence, based on a number of mathematical assumptions that are sometimes (but not always) rooted in experience.

No one denies that this is a useful exercise. However, in actual fact, the probability of almost all nuclear accidents that have so far occurred is in fact ZERO, because none of them were foreseen as possible outcomes by any of the people who carried out the safety analysis initially.

Did anyone foresee the possibility of Fukushima Dai-ichi units 1, 2, and 3, suffering core damage simultaneously? Did anyone foresee the chain of events that led to the fires in the spent fuel bay of unit 4? I think not.

Even if such outcomes had been analyzed in advance, the real probability of that particular outcome is dominated by the probability of the earthquake and tsunami that precipitated the outcome, and that probability is incalculable by any reliable scientific method available to us.

Simple Prudence Dictates….

Arrogance is inappropriate, even criminal, in the face of such incipient dangers. Science and engineering are powerful and useful tools, but they are no substitute for common sense. Just as many people around the world are asking themselves, “Why would the Japanese site nuclear reactors so close to an earthquake zone?”, our grandchildren may well be asking themselves, “Why would our forebears site nuclear reactors so close to the most precious body of freshwater in North America, and perhaps in the entire world?”

Simple prudence, coupled with a sense of responsible humility, should tell us that it is folly to continue to site nuclear reactors which are CAPABLE of undergoing such terrible meltdown scenarios, on the Great Lakes or near large population centres. In fact an enormous portion of the entire North American population lives within the “striking distance” of a potential nuclear catastrophe on either side of the border.

A Royal Commission of Inquiry

We urge the panel to recommend that the government of Canada launch a pan-Canadian Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Future of Nuclear Power in Canada. We urge the panel also to recommend that all licensing of new nuclear reactor facilities be suspended until the Commission has completed its work. We further urge the panel to recommend that no new nuclear reactors be sited on the shores of the Great Lakes unless it can be proven beyond any doubt that a catastrophic release of radioactive fission products is physically impossible.

It is time to stop hiding the truth about the dangers of nuclear power from the Canadian population and from their elected representatives. A Royal Commission of Inquiry will allow the facts to be made public – facts about both the benefits and the hazards of this technology. On the basis of a clear understanding of those facts, Canadian citizens and their elected representatives will be enabled for the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age to make an informed choice about the future of this heavily-subsidized energy option.

Note from Janet: Please visit the Web site of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility to find TONS of good information about everything nuclear!

I haven’t been keeping the blog updated with all the steam generator news; my apologies! (Lots of postings on this topic here)

I think it was back in March that Bruce Power announced it was delaying their plans in order to consult with First Nations groups. Ah yes. Here is the Bruce Power news release about it.

This was a rather amusing claim for them to make, given their very cavalier attitude toward public consultation of ALL kinds as regards this project. (They had to be dragged kicking & screaming into doing any public consultation whatsoever. Their failure to consult with First Nations communities was particularly notable, although also notable was the complete failure to consult with anyone in the province of Quebec – communities, mayors, First Nations or even the entire provincial government!? Of course Ontarians were also similarly ignored, as far as that goes.)

So. I’ve had a good chuckle over their claim that they want to consult with First Nations & Métis groups. A person a little less polite than I might call this nonsense (or use an even less polite word!).

Okay.

So now, they have withdrawn their application for a permit to the U.S. Department of Transportation. They need this permit since the ship they hope to send with the radioactive steam generators would pass through American territory on its route.

Not sure why it took them quite so many weeks after their decision to do more consultation to withdraw this application. Almost 2 months, by my count.

Frankly, it all smells pretty fishy to me.

But at least the shipment project seems to have lost a little bit of steam.

Heh heh.

(You can go here to see a recent news item about the latest development in this steam generator saga. Here is Bruce Power’s brief statement about it.)

Wish I could believe that this is the end of the road for this horrendously stupid idea. Alas, I fear it is not…

Janet

P.S. A day after I posted this, I received an email message that told me what’s REALLY keeping Bruce Power from proceeding full steam ahead (as you might say) on their plans. It’s POLITICS. (I should have known!!) Ontario is only months away from holding a provincial election. It looks very much as though our governing Liberal party (remember: this is Ontario provinical politics I am now talking about) has told Bruce Power to cool their jets on it for the time being. No doubt the governing Liberals (the ones who have promised to spend $36 billion on new nukes) don’t wish to have the proposed steam generator shipment become an election issue. I knew the explanation given publicly by Bruce Power smelled awfully fishy!!

I attended this excellent event last Saturday in Dearborn, Michigan. It was sponsored by Sierra Club – S.E. Michigan Group, Sierra Club of Canada, Ohio Sierra Club Nuclear Issues Committee & Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination

Lots of great speakers!! (Full agenda is below.)

Here are links to YouTubes of 4 of the presentations. These are excellent presentations, btw, & I recommend that anyone who wants to understand the current nuclear scene in North America watch them. The Chernobyl & Fukushima accidents also inevitably come up.

Keynote presentation by Dr. Gordon Edwards, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (touches on all aspects of the nuclear issue: history of the nuclear industry, the difference between radiation & radioactivity, internal vs. external radiation, children in Japan now being exposed to as much radiation as atomic workers in Germany, deliberate obfuscation used by the nuclear industry, “engineering euphoria,” the fact that all discoveries about health impacts come from outside the nuclear industry, etc. etc.)

Presentation by Lynn Ehrle (Chair of the International Science Oversight Board of the Organic Consumers Association) on the new book about the Chernobyl accident. (The book is called Chernobyl – Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, by Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily Nesterenko & Alexey V. Nesterenko.) The posting I did on April 26th gives details on how to order the book, & since it costs only $10. per copy,  I recommend it!

Presentation by Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear: Radioactive Roulette on the Great Lakes: Davis-Besse Plant (the nuclear hot spots map to which he refers can be found on the Beyond Nuclear site here )

Presentation by Michael J. Keegan of the Coalition for a Nuclear Free Great Lakes – Dangers of Nuclear Energy & the Fermi 3 Plants in Monroe, Michigan.

************

Agenda

8:30 - Registration
9:00 – 9:10 - Welcome
9:10 – 9:25 - Lynn Ehrle, Chair of the International Science Oversight Board of the Organic Consumers Association: “A Critical New Book on the Human Health and Environmental Impacts of Chernobyl”
9: 30 – 9:45 - Music – Victor McManemy, Great Lakes Songwriter and Musician
9:50 – 10:40 - Keynote Speaker: Gordon Edwards, Ph.D., President of Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility: “Radioactive Contamination of the Earth – Accidental or Deliberate?”
10:40 – 11:00 -  Break
11:00- 11:40 - Brennain Lloyd, Community Organizer with Northwatch: “A Deep Radioactive Dump Beside Lake Huron?”
11:45 – 12:25 - Kevin Kamps and Gordon Edwards: “Radioactive Wreck: U.S. and Canadian Nuclear Waste Policy”
12:25 – 1:10 - Lunch
1:10 – 1:50 - Michael Keegan, Chair, Coalition for a Nuclear Free Great Lakes, “Why We Should Oppose a New Reactor in Monroe, Michigan.”
1:55 – 2:15 - Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog, Beyond Nuclear “Radioactive Roulette on the shores of the Great Lakes: Davis-Besse”
2:20 – 2:35 - Greg Laskowsky, Lead Instructor, Energy Technology, Energy and Technology Department, Henry Ford Community College: “Henry Ford Community College’s Renewable Energy Program – A History and Introduction.”
2:35- 2:50 – Break
2:50 – 3:30 - Kathleen Law, Former Michigan legislator who introduced the first European-style legislation in North America, since adopted by Ontario: “How to Make Clean Local Energy Accessible”
3:35 – 4:05 - Full Panel on relevant legislation and ways to impact government on energy issues
4:05 – 4:25 - Questions from the audience
4:25 – 4:45 - Closing – followed by music, Victor McManemy
4:45 – 5:00 - Visit with speakers, visit tables

Things seem to be in a mess, don’t they? Environmental disasters. Economic disasters. Wars. You name it. There’s no end to the problems.

It could drive you crazy, thinking constantly about all that’s “wrong” in the world.

It’s easy within our own personal relationships to do a lot of arguing & blaming & fighting, too, I think.

I recently came across a creative & cheeky way to deal with the question, “Whose fault is it?”

In What On Earth Have I Done? Stories, Observations, and Affirmations, author Robert Fulghum (of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten fame) suggests a very fun approach used in his household. Every member of the household (even their housekeeper) has her/his own day of the week to take responsibility for whatever goes wrong. Someone forgot to buy milk? Well – must be my fault; Thursday’s my day to be responsible for whatever goes wrong.

It sounds kind of crazy, I know, but it’s worth a try. It turns out to be fun! I experimented with it last weekend on an adventure-filled road trip with a couple friends, & it gave us lots of laughs.

As Fulghum puts it at the end of his essay (& I highly recommend the book; his essays are always worth reading),

“There are a lot worse ways to live together with other people. I know. I’ve tried them.”

I don’t think we can quite solve all the world’s problems this way. But then, only a naïve person would even believe that all the world’s problems are solvable. (Some of us are terminally naïve, aren’t we??)

In the Fulghum household, apologizing & grovelling a little go along with the taking of responsibility. I think we should all try out this approach!

After all, apologies are pretty magical. (In my books, anything that leads to transformation is magical, & I’ve definitely seen apologies transform situations & relationships. Great quote on apologies: “Apology is a lovely perfume; it can transform the clumsiest moment into a gracious gift.” (Margaret Lee Runbeck) Other things that are magical on ‘janet’s planet’ are walks, music/singing, friendship, books/reading, & … well, the mind is blanking right now, but since plenty of things are clearly transformational, you can fill in the blanks for yourself!)

In a whole lot of ways, the human race seems to be crawling around at the bottom of a pretty nasty, murky swamp.

Bitching & carping & blame-laying are not swamp-exiting maneuvers, I think.

Taking responsibility, & apologizing, & humour, & fun &, well, some hard work, too, of course … offer us much greater potential, I think.

What the heck, eh?

Gotta be worth a shot, at least.

Janet

P.S. Some possible ‘Quotes for Today’:

“I do not want to talk about what you understand about this world. I want to know what you will do about it. I do not want to know what you hope. I want to know what you will work for. I do not want your sympathy for the needs of humanity. I want your muscle.” ~ Robert Fulghum (not sure where I picked this one up. Not in the book under current discussion, though, for sure! Just happened to run across it while trolling through my 88-page ‘Quotations’ document.)

“Saving our civilization is not a spectator sport.” – Lester Brown (Earth Policy Institute)

“Almost anything you do will seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“If your house is on fire, the most urgent thing to do is to go back and try to put out the fire, not to run after the person you believe to be the arsonist.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

“I can’t understand why people are afraid of new ideas, I’m afraid of the old ones.” – John Cage

Have you heard about the Awesome Foundation??

I did, a few months ago.

Here is what they say about themselves:

“The Awesome Foundation for the Arts and Sciences is an ever-growing, worldwide network of people devoted to forwarding the interest of awesomeness in the universe.

Created in the long hot summer days of 2009 in Boston, the Foundation distributes a series of monthly $1,000 grants to projects and their creators. The money is given upfront in cash, check, or gold doubloons by groups of ten or so self-organizing “micro-trustees,” who form autonomous chapters around geographic areas or topics of interest.

The Foundation provides these grants with no strings attached and claims no ownership over the projects it supports. It is, in the words of one of our trustees, a micro-genius grant for flashes of micro-brilliance.

Since its humble beginnings, many Awesome Foundation chapters have sprung up globally to conserve, sustain, and support the worldwide ecosystem of awesomeness. Projects have included efforts in a wide range of areas including technology, arts, social good, and beyond.

We’re still waiting for something with dinosaurs (hint, hint)”

So. Bottom line is, they have chapters all over the place (Toronto included) & once a month they throw $1000 at ideas they feel are “awesome.”

If you have an awesome idea, check it out, people!!

Janet

P.S. ‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “The universe oozes with power, waiting for anyone who wishes to embrace it.” – mathematical cosmologist Brian Swimme, author of The Universe is a Green Dragon, quoted in Matthew Fox’s The Coming of the Cosmic Christ – The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance (Pg. 40)

This blog post title has a dual purpose. I want to suggest that surely it’s time we human beings went beyond nuclear??

And it’s the name of a (U.S.-based) group of that name that does tons of work on nuclear issues with tons of good info on its Web site, which I am delighted to promote.

In case you’re not yet convinced it’s time to go beyond nuclear, check out the handy (downloadable) pamphlet 10 Reasons to Say No to Nuclear Power

Many other similarly awesome & useful downloadable pamphlets are found here

Nuclear Reactors – Additional Resources (& tons of ‘em! – including the Nuclear Awareness Project ‘Great Lakes Nuclear Hot Spots’ map & Dr. Gordon Edwards & Robert Del Tredichi’s ‘Nuclear Map of Canada’)

VIDEOS

Also, there is plenty of info about Fukushima on the Beyond Nuclear site

AND, a must-see 3:27 minute video here

I’m sure there are many other excellent Web sites with a ton of good info about all topics nuclear.

2 others that spring immediately to mind are:

• Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility &
• International Institute of Concern for Public Health

There is also a great weekly publication called No Nukes News (you can subscribe; go to the site & find out how)

And lots of very quotable quotes about nukes here

Janet

P.S. I’m a relative latecomer to the anti-nuclear scene. Always been anti-nuke, far as I can recall, but only in the past few years actually active on it. The recent Darlington hearings (which got underway a mere 10 days after the nuclear disaster began in Japan) convinced me that all the nuclear industry’s resources need to focus from here on in on proper storage & handling of the already-existing & still-to-be-created nuclear wastes that will remain deadly for hundreds of thousands of years, & on safe decommissioning of current nuclear facilities. This alone will challenge the nuke industry (& all of humanity) for all the rest of our days. My own presentation at the hearing is here

P.P.S. A selection of items on the topic of nukes & climate change here

P.P.P.S. ‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “We know we face extinction if nuclear war ever begins. But we face the same extinction even if the bombs never fall. The production alone of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons is initiating the death crisis of our species.” – Dr. Rosalie Bertell

<Jan. 15/11>

Just got the idea to do a bunch of “Who knew??” items. We’ll see where this goes….

• Who knew I’d develop an addiction to latté – live without it for weeks & weeks at a time while out in the boonies (at “home”), but buy one almost daily while in Toronto? And discover a crazy (& surely unaccountable) price range. The place at the corner of Dundas & McCaul (near the Art Gallery, a handy spot for which I had such high hopes) charged me $5. for one. Sure won’t be darkening their door again!?
• Who knew that, at the age of 56, I’d sell my dear little house (it really was a dear little house) & become a virtual nomad? Proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that you can indeed teach an old(ish) dog new tricks…
• Who knew that after more than 20 years as an environmental activist, I’d learn of a new (old) issue & become so fired up about it? (I’m referring of course to the lead issue, my latest issue-to-be-fired up-about.)
• Who knew that the lead industry would turn out to be as venal & nasty as the nuclear one? & who knew that I spent so many years being so darn naïve that if naivete were an indictable offence, I’d have been thrown in the slammer years ago for my fatal case of it?
• Who knew that, as it turns out, the lead & nuclear industries have so much in common?
• Who knew that the wonderful vegetarian restaurant ‘The Commensal’ in Toronto (right near the bus terminal at Bay & Dundas) serves beer?? OMG – I think I’ve died & gone to heaven!!
• Who knew that microwave popcorn contains a chemical called diacetyl that is used to enhance taste, & that this chemical causes a horrid lung disease to the workers who are exposed to it? Yikes! (Learned this from the book Dodging the Toxic Bullet, mentioned below.)
• Who could ever have told me that 16 years into a very (perhaps even prize-winningly) civil/civilized divorce, there would still be so darn much pain involved?? Not over the loss of the person so much as over all the other related, inevitable losses, fallout & “collateral damage.” Yikes. Who knew, indeed… (Funny. I wanted to make a joke about this in my remarks at the recent Darlington (new nuclear) hearings. I was tempted to say “We’re talking here about nuclear waste that will be horrifically dangerous/life-threatening for 100s of thousands of years. And I thought the fallout from my divorce was long-lived!?)
• Who knew how much awesome fun I’d wind up having, & the amazing friendships I’d wind up making, when I began to “follow my bliss” & became an environmental activist & writer?
• Who knew 20 years ago that “…lake trout in the alpine lakes at Banff National Park in Canada…are loaded with toxic pesticides used in Russia”?? (This from David Suzuki’s foreword to the David R. Boyd book Dodging the Toxic Bullet – How to Protect Yourself from Everyday Environmental Health Hazards.) Yikes. & sheesh, is about all I can say on that score (also, I’m mighty glad about all that work I did as a volunteer to help educate others about pesticide use. That was sure a good call!)
• Who knew that the author of the Toxic Bullet book just mentioned would wind up with a headache & burning eyes during his “Toxic Tour” of Sarnia, Ontario’s “Chemical Valley”? Again, yikes, & sheesh, & very happy I’m engaged in environmental work. Sure feels a whole lot better than just sitting around expecting it all to stop on its own (or, alternatively, pretending it isn’t happening).
• Who knew that Canada, so widely regarded as a civilized country (Americans in particular seem to harbour some grand illusion about how good we are up here… & civilized. Ha!), would actually repeatedly earn truly deserved fossil fuel awards. And, like the U.S. & Australia, continue to allow a wildly toxic pesticide (atrazine) to be used (unlike the European Union, which has banned its use). Oh Canada indeed! We of the “corrupt petrostate” designation… The tar sands: our national disgrace & scandal (excellent documentary on it here)
• Who knew I would come to be sooooooo sadly disillusioned about how “great” Canada is, & how self-interested our governing political party is? (John Kenneth Galbraith’s quote “The modern conservative…is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness” springs helpfully to mind here.)
• Who ever-ever-ever knew that my knee-jerk proclivity to be … natural? … would protect me from so many harms? I’ve never much cared for wearing make-up (turns out most of it is full of toxic stuff) or perfume (chemicals) & have felt like a weirdo anytime I’ve ever put on lipstick. Gave up dry-cleaning eons ago (had heard about perchlorethylene being vastly toxic, not to mention one of the “dirty dozen” we need to studiously avoid); have used clotheslines & a clotheshorse for years (to save money, but it also saves energy & thus helps with the climate change issue) – & it turns out that dryer sheets (which I used to use once upon a time occasionally, but also gave up eons ago when my favourite appliance repairman dude told me they can cause a fire in your dryer) contain dangerous VOCs – volatile organic compounds – & am always too “poor” to spend money on painting & renovations – which, it turns out, can also be a minefield of toxins (go here for how to renovate with care).

Seems as though “modern” life is awfully mighty toxic… so glad I have never felt obliged to “keep up!” (Although of course I do breathe in the same polluted air & drink the same tainted water as everyone else.)

Janet

P.S. & finally, who knew that that dysfunctional childhood of mine would wind up giving me so many useful lifelong habits? My not-very-nice father hated the ads on TV with a fierce passion – & was wildly, shall we say frugal – & these influences of his have helped me far more than I can say. Being independent of all those darn ads – & adept at living frugally …well, what can I say? Except a belated thank you to that not-very-nice father for some of his wildly useful & lasting attitudes!!

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “The single most important contribution any of us can make to the planet is a return to frugality.” – Robert Muller, former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations

<May 21/11> So, it’s Victoria Day weekend in Canada, as I write this. I have a bit of a history of feeling a wee bit lonely & hard done by on long weekends – imagining, as I am wont to do, everyone else on the planet having an uproariously, raucously wonderful time with dearly beloved friends & family. (Yes, quite the imagination, hmmm?)

For sure, I’ve been here before! My unusual & occasionally muddled-seeming life hasn’t turned out quite the way I’d ever had in mind. Mostly I enjoy my considerable freedom, love my life & think of it as a grand, unpredictable adventure…but “long weekends” generally bring out the maudlin in me, if only ever so briefly.

But hey! I can also be pretty smart! I picked up my new copy of Pema Chödrön’s Taking the Leap – Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits & Fears, & started re-reading it. I bought it a few weeks ago, read it in one big gulp (the way I read most things) & laid it aside on my bedside table.

In Chapter 1 of the book, Pema introduces the idea of taking a 3-breath pause several times a day. She suggests that this can get us in touch with our “natural openness, the spaciousness of our skylike minds,” & she also says doing this can help us to stop “strengthening the aggression habit…”

Mmmmmmm. Now that sounds like a pretty good idea.

For sure, I needed reminding about the pause. I have a pretty busy mind, & pausing to take 3 breaths once in a while really helps bring me back down to Earth.

I’m a big Pema fan. Her words are always gentle, wise, & above all, immensely practical.

**********

Ahhhhhhhhhhh how the moods come & go, hmmmm?

It is very seldom that I feel lonely or hard done by – very seldom indeed.

When one of these feelings does pay a visit, I know enough now to know that they never stick around for very long.

Thanks, Pema, for the pause idea. It really helps!

And thanks too, to Eckhart Tolle, for his simple reminder “This too will pass.”

Hurray for this soooooooooo helpful pair!!

Janet

P.S. I wrote about both of these two quite recently – Pema here & Tolle here

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “Sanity is permanent; neurosis is temporary.” – Chögyam Trungpa (from Pema Chödrön’s Taking the Leap – Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits & Fears)

An elephant asks a camel, “Why are your breasts on your back?”

“Well,” says the camel, “I think that’s an inappropriate question from somebody whose dick is on his face.”

Just saw this list in an Earth Island Journal post by Gar Smith that you can read here

Please read it!!

This is just the list, lifted from the post & pasted in. But you need to read the whole blog post item, so please do!!

• United Kingdom (1957): Windscale reactor fire contaminates 35 workers. Radioactive cloud covers Northern Europe and causes at least 200 cases of cancer.
• Soviet Union (1957): Radioactive explosion at Mayak reprocessing site forces evacuation of 10,000 people. Radiation contributes to deaths of 200.
• USA (1975): Alabama’s Browns Ferry plant catches fire and burns for seven hours with two reactors running. Meltdown feared as fire destroys controls.
• USA (1979): Partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island. Radiation released. Thousands evacuated.
• USA (1981): California’s San Onofre plant closed for 14 months to repair 6,000 leaking steam tubes. During restart, plant catches fire, knocking out one of two back-up generators.
• United Kingdom (1983): Beaches near Sellafield (formerly Windscale) nuclear processing plant closed due to radiation contamination.
• Soviet Union (1986): Chernobyl explosion. World’s worst nuclear accident – so far. Estimates of associated deaths run from 9,000 to nearly one million people.
• Japan (1997): Chain reaction at Tokaimura reprocessing plant exposes 37 workers and surrounding neighborhoods to radiation.
• Japan (1999): Two workers killed at Tokaimura during unplanned chain reaction.
• Japan (2004): Steam explosion kills four at Mihama reactor.
• Sweden (2006): Short circuit disables emergency power at Forsmark reactor. Catastrophic core meltdown barely averted.
• France (2008): Tricastin nuclear facility accidentally releases 18,000 liters of irradiated water.

As the article/post states, the above list is only a partial one.

Sobering as heck, isn’t it?

Janet

‘Quote of the day‘ w. this post: “Is the minor convenience of allowing the present generation the luxury of doubling its energy consumption every 10 years’ worth the major hazard of exposing the next 20,000 generations to this lethal waste?” – David Brower

P.S. Lots of excellent nuke-related quotes here

Many thanks to Bruce Power & the Canadian Nuclear Association for this latest blog post idea. Thanks a bunch, dudes!!

A recent news item (presumably motivated by a news release sent to the media by the Canadian Nuclear Association) makes the outlandish claim that the quantity of radioactive contaminants in the 16 radioactive & school-bus-sized steam generators that Bruce Power wants to ship from Canada to Sweden (with considerable risk to the Great Lakes, supplier of drinking water to 40 million) is equivalent to the amount of radioactivity in 50 bananas.

What?????? Say again??

(For anyone who has not previously heard about this preposterous nuclear industry plan, please have a look at the post “Recycling: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly.”)

This banana business is absurd!! I went on-line to check it out & found a Wikipedia entry here called “Banana Equivalent Dose.”

And I quote: “A banana equivalent dose is a whimsical unit of radiation exposure, informally defined as the additional dose a person will absorb from eating one banana. It may be sometimes abbreviated as BED.

The concept is based on the fact that bananas, like most organic material, naturally contain a certain amount of radioactive isotopes—even in the absence of any artificial pollution or contamination. The banana equivalent dose was meant to express the severity of exposure to radiation, such as resulting from nuclear power, nuclear weapons or medical procedures, in terms that would make sense to most people.”

The entry goes on to state “the validity of the banana equivalent dose concept has been challenged. Critics, including the EPA,[8] pointed out that the amount of potassium (and therefore of ⁴⁰K) in the human body is fairly constant because of homeostasis,[9] so that any excess absorbed from food is quickly compensated by the elimination of an equal amount.[1][10]

It follows that the additional radiation exposure due to eating a banana last only for a short period after ingestion, not for 30 days (half-life) as implicitly assumed when using the EPA conversion factor.”

& a great deal more. (Check it out!)

What this is really all about is the nuclear industry trying to minimize the danger of their products – & their very, very, very long-lived resulting nuclear wastes. They do this all the time. They try to make those of us who oppose their activities sound like a bunch of irrational wackos.

So their latest gambit is “Shoot! Our 16 radioactive steam generators are as safe as/only as dangerous as 50 bananas!”

Horsefeathers, ladies & gentlemen. To put it very, very politely.

Another recent article reveals that “…radioactive emissions from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in the early days of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disaster might have been more than twice as large as a previous estimate, suggesting the accident was more grave than the government had publicly acknowledged.”

Yikes. Who we gonna trust, eh??? Not the nuclear industry, I’d say (& not government either, but let’s leave that one aside for the moment).

I don’t expect anyone to just trust me, either. Check out some facts (not factoids, which is the best you generally get from the nuclear industry).

Here is a partial list of the radioactive contaminants found inside a used steam generator from one of the Bruce reactors. (Please note that the information comes from Ontario Power Generation, the arm of the Ontario government that is ultimately responsible for nuclear generation & transmission.)

Here is a shorter list that focuses on the plutonium isotopes.

Here are “15 things citizens need to know” about the radioactive steam generators.

& here is an entire Web site section focused on plutonium.

Plutonium is a very, very, very long way from being as innocuous as bananas – no matter what Bruce Power will try to tell you. It’s NASTY. Nasty & dangerous, & integral in the creation of nuclear weapons.

Its dangers & risks should not be minimized. Not if you are being even the slightest bit upfront with people.

So. In response to BP’s latest preposterous claim, apparently aimed at demonizing bananas & whitewashing radioactive wastes, I offer up some new bumper sticker phrases/suggestions:

• Playing with Plutonium: It’s Bananas!
• Bananas Are a Bomb! (Not)
• 50 Bananas: What a Bomb!
• BP: This Plan is Bananas!
• Sexually active…or RADIOactive?
• Is That 1,000 Bananas in Your Pocket…or are you just trying to lie about deadly radiation??
• Have you ding-dongs forgotten about the Titanic????

Janet

P.S. A whip-smart colleague says “Let’s talk about the real numbers – which are that EACH steam generator has a dose rate of about 80-100 microsieverts PER HOUR (100 uSv/ hr) on contact (reference CNSC CMD 10-H19C, page 3, section 4.2.1 which says “Most of the dose rates from the steam generators were less than 100 microsieverts per hour (uSv/hr) on contact.”)

He continues, “We know that these steam generators are not all alike – some are more radioactive than others – “the maximum contact dose rate measured on a small area of one of the steam generators was 740 microsieverts per hour and the maximum dose rate measured AT ONE METER from the surface of the steam generators was 80 uSv/hr”  (reference CNSC CMD 10-H19C  Sept 27,  2010, page 3,  section 4.2.1). Note that this was the revised estimate to be 740 microsieverts per hour.

“It is curious that the Canadian Nuclear Association would chose to use the banana as a dose, which has been discredited on the science of the estimate. It is also curious that even using this ridiculous measure, they got the numbers WRONG! In the popular literature one banana has been equated to a dose of 0.1 microsieverts and we know that the dose rate for most of the steam generators is about 80-100 microsieverts PER HOUR. So if they wanted to use this ridiculous measure, then the correct answer would have been 800 to 1000 bananas PER HOUR for EACH generator – and there are 16 steam generators proposed to be shipped.

This way of expressing risk seems like a lot of bananas!”

P.P.S. Bruce Power (& its backer, the Canadian Nuclear Association) say BP wants to “do the right thing.” The first “right” thing to do would be to stop spewing nonsense & start telling the truth. The second? Get on back to school & brush up on the math, dudes, pullllllese! Third: Put this stupid, preposterous, dangerous, absurd & ill-conceived plan right where it belongs. In the trash can. Bury it… (the plan, not the waste).

P.P.P.S. There are many other postings about the steam generators here

P.S. # 4: & yikes!! Check out a news item here about a small boat hired by Bruce Power that sank in Lake Huron last week. Never mind the Titanic; this was just a tiny boat. Holy moley, dudes. And we’re supposed to just trust you on a plan to put 16 school bus-sized radioactive steam generators on a ship & sail it halfway around the world??? I don’t think so…

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “Nuclear power is safe only if no Act of God is permitted.”  – Nobel-prize-winning physicist Hannes Alfven, 1972

<May 31/11.>

Been thinking about heroes lately. I guess we all need heroes, eh?

We all need people we can look up to…right?

Actually, we’re pretty much wired to “look up” from the moment we’re born. Our parents are our first heroes. They’re our very gods & goddesses … from Day 1! (I guess that’s why the mistakes they make & our resulting neuroses/psychoses are so stubborn & lifelong, usually. To transcend or transmute them takes work…a heck of a lot of effort & energy & determination & guts & work. No wonder not all of us are up to it!)

Well.

What I really want to muse on here is men & their (apparent) need to be heroic.

I do believe men want to be seen as (at least somewhat) heroic to their womenfolk. And that this is utterly natural.

We human beings evolved for a very different world than this one, hmmm? In the old, old, really old days (from today’s vantage point, although not so very long ago, in geological terms), men were the brave hunters, in our tribal gathering/hunting days. (Maybe women have always been considered somewhat … heroic or special? … for our life-giving & nurturing qualities?? Perhaps. Except when we haven’t been. But I digress.)

Okay. So, I think our men want/need to be heroes.

It doesn’t always work out so well…does it?

I muse on my own relationships with men – & the kind of relationship I still aspire to. The men I’ve loved have been heroic to me – in one major, pivotal way or another. I’ve witnessed the disaster that can result when someone goes crashing off his (or presumably her) pedestal. I’ve also seen how even continued & sincere love, admiration & respect can only take you so far. When they run smack dab into a man’s deep & persistent self-loathing (or a woman’s, as the case may be), it might as well be a lead barrier. Some things even love can’t penetrate.

No one ever said life was simple, did they??

(& btw, I believe men do have a need to be perceived as heroes, & if we women who love our men treat them with cavalier disregard, or even contempt – as I see some women doing – we can hardly be surprised if their spirits more or less shrivel up. Patriarchy has damaged women for thousands of years. Fact. Turning it around & behaving as though two wrongs are suddenly, miraculously going to make a right, is not going to paint any prettier a picture…hmmm?)

Well. So. Men need to be heroes.

What do women need?

To be beautiful? Rich? Brilliant? Accomplished? Admired?

Well, maybe. Maybe those are some of the things some women need (or think they need).

Mostly, I think what women REALLY want & need, is…

To talk (& be heard).

Talk & talk & talk & talk & then, talk some more.

Since a lot of men seem to be wired to ACT – & even somewhat frequently, perhaps, to act without thoughtfully considering the consequences of their actions (what I refer to as the Ready- FIRE!!-Aim syndrome) you’d think that the marriage of women & men (or female & male qualities) would be one made in heaven, wouldn’t you?

An idea dawns.

People start talking about it.

Discussing it. Weighing the pros & cons.

Conversation… & lots of it.

Then, when lots of good thinking & discussion have taken place… Action!

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we humans had always properly valued the unique strengths & contributions of both sexes??

And given simple conversation its rightful due.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh…

Janet

P.S. on Oct. 26th, so, 4 months later… I keep musing on things, & the other day I came up with this little addition. Dunno if it’s true or not…you decide! Men want to be heroes. Women want to serve (& mostly, I think, in today’s world, neither sex ever feels quite as though we’re living up to all we aspire to do…& be).

P.P.S. For an utterly hilarious poke at the way women & men think & talk to one another (& utterly, utterly, utterly fail to communicate), DO read the brilliant Dave Barry essay here

P.P.P.S. Odd coincidence, if you want to call it that.  I wrote down these thoughts about heroism early in the day, & then later in the day watched the documentary film ‘The Battle of Chernobyl.’ Although I’d heard of the Chernobyl “liquidators,” I’d had no idea how many of them there were, or where they came from, or the scope of the work they did, post-Chernobyl accident 25 years ago (April 26, 1986). Now, speaking of heroism… those men were heroes. (You can watch the film on-line here. And I highly recommend that you do, in this post-Fukushima world we now inhabit. I won’t lie & tell you it’s an easy film to watch. It isn’t. But I’d consider watching it anyway. If it does nothing else for us, & does not motivate us into taking any kind of action, at the very least it will surely make those of us who live where there has not been a nuclear accident (yet) feel actively grateful for that fact. And the more gratitude (1) we feel, the better – in my books, anyway!

‘Quote of the Day’ w. this post: “What we need now is heroes – millions of them. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.” – Paul Watson

Runners-up: “Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other, so that the world may come into being. Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.” – P. Teilhard de Chardin (1881 – 1955)

“It is not genius, nor glory, nor love that reflects the greatness of the human soul; it is kindness.” – Henri-Dominique Lacordaire

“A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back – but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.” ~ Marian Wright Edelman

(1) Lots of postings about gratitude here

Press Release………For Immediate Release……………..June 13, 2011.

Maude Barlow urges Swedish Minister of the Environment to stop radioactive waste shipment

In a letter dated June 13, 2011, Maude Barlow, National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians urges Swedish Minster of the Environment Andreas Carlgren to intervene and revoke Studsvik’s permit to transport the radioactive shipment.

Canadian company Bruce Power plans to ship 16 bus-size radioactive steam generators from the Great Lakes in Canada to Nyköping, Sweden. Bruce Power is contracting Swedish company Studsvik to transport and decontaminate 90% of the steam generators and free release the scrap metal into the consumer market.

Barlow, who was the Senior Advisor on Water to the 63rd President of the United Nations General Assembly, warns, “With Studsvik’s plant in Nyköping, the recycling of this radioactive waste will further pollute the waters of the Baltic Sea, which is already known as one of the most radioactive seas in the world… This is the first of several shipments that threaten the North Sea, the North Atlantic Ocean, Canadian and US lakes and other bodies of water.”

The shipment of radioactive waste has drawn criticism from city mayors, US senators, environmental organizations and First Nation and other communities. The radioactive levels of the steam generators also exceed legal limits set out by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material by 50 times. The shipment sets a dangerous precedent. Michael Binder, President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, has admitted that there has never been a shipment of this magnitude on the Great Lakes before. Public consultation in Canada, the US and Europe has been inadequate.

In April, 20 European civil society organizations sent a letter to Canadian, US, UK, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish governments demanding a stop to Bruce Power’s plan to ship radioactive waste.

Bruce Power has delayed the shipment to consult with First Nations in Canada. While Bruce withdrew their application to the US Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration in May, Bruce Power and Studsvik still have permits with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the Swedish Radiation Authority respectively to transport and decontaminate the radioactive waste.

-30-

For More Information:

Dylan Penner, Media Officer, Council of Canadians, (613) 795-8685, dpenner@canadians.org, Twitter: @CouncilofCDNs

A friend sent me this article & link. At this point, I don’t have permission to post it, but I suspect that the author & the keepers of the Web site, like me, just want to keep the important news circulating, so I’m going ahead – giving, of course, full credit to the author & the Web site. (I’m notifying the keepers of the Counterpunch Web site via email that I am posting this.)

The Big Lies Fly High

Fukushima and the Nuclear Establishment

By KARL GROSSMAN

The global nuclear industry and its allies in government are making a desperate effort to cover up the consequences of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. “The big lie flies high,” comments Kevin Kamps of the organization Beyond Nuclear.

Not only is this nuclear establishment seeking to make it look like the Fukushima catastrophe has not happened – going so far as to claim that there will be “no health effects” as a result of it – but it is moving forward on a “nuclear renaissance,” its scheme to build more nuclear plants.

Indeed, next week in Washington, a two-day “Special Summit on New Nuclear Energy” will be held involving major manufacturers of nuclear power plants-including General Electric, the manufacturer of the Fukushima plants-and U.S. government officials.

Although since Fukushima, Germany, Switzerland and Italy and other nations have turned away from nuclear power for a commitment instead to safe, clean, renewable energy such as solar and wind, the Obama administration is continuing its insistence on nuclear power.

Will the nuclear establishment be able to get away with telling what, indeed, would be one of the most outrageous Big Lies of all time-that no one will die as a result of Fukushima?

Will it be able to continue its new nuclear push despite the catastrophe?

Nearly 100 days after the Fukushima disaster began, with radiation still streaming from the plants, with its owners, TEPCO, now admitting that meltdowns did occur at its plants, that releases have been twice as much as it announced earlier, with deadly radioactivity from Fukushima spreading worldwide, and with some countries now changing course and saying no to nuclear power, while others stick with it, a nuclear crossroads has arrived.

“No health effects are expected among the Japanese people as a result of the events at Fukushima,” the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry trade group, flatly declared in a statement issued at a press conference in Washington last week.

“They’re lying,” says Dr. Janette Sherman, a toxicologist and contributing editor of the book Chernobyl: The Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment published by the New York Academy of Sciences in 2009. Using medical data from between 1986 and 2004, its authors, a team of European scientists, determines that 985,000 people died worldwide from the radioactivity discharged from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

The Fukushima disaster will have a comparable toll, expects Dr. Sherman, who has conducted research into the consequences of radiation for decades. “People living closest to the plants who receive the biggest doses will get sick sooner. Those who are farther away and receive lesser doses will get sick at a slower rate,” she says.

“We’ve known about radioactive isotopes for decades,” says Dr. Sherman.

“I worked for the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950s and we knew about the effects then. To ignore the biology is to our peril. This is not new science. Cesium-137 goes to soft tissue. Strontium-90 goes to the bones and teeth. Iodine-131 goes to the thyroid gland.” All have been released in large amounts in the Fukushima disaster since it began on March 11.

There will inevitably be cancer and other illnesses-as well as genetic effects-as a result of the substantial discharges of radioactivity released from Fukushima, says Dr. Sherman. “People in Japan will be the most impacted but the radiation has been spreading worldwide and will impact life worldwide.”

The American Nuclear Society, made up of what its website says are “professionals” in the nuclear field, is also deep in the Fukushima denial camp. “Radiation risks to people living in Japan are very low, and no public ill effects are expected from the Fukushima incident,” it declares on its website. As to the U.S., the Illinois-based organization adds: “There is no health risk of radiation from the Fukushima incident to people in the United States.”

Acknowledging that “radiation from Fukushima has been detected within the United States,” the American Nuclear Society asserts that’s because we are able to detect very small amounts of radiation. Through the use of extremely sensitive equipment, U.S. laboratories have been able to detect very minute quantities of radioactive isotopes in air, precipitation, milk, and drinking water due to the Fukushima incident.The radiation from Fukushima, though detectable, is nowhere near the level of public health concern.”

Says Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, “The absurd belief that no one will be harmed by Fukushima is perhaps the strongest evidence of the pattern of deception and denial by nuclear officials in industry and government.”

The World Health Organization has added its voice to the denial group. “For anyone outside Japan there is currently no health risk from radiation leaking from the nuclear power plant,” Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman, has insisted. “We know that there have been measurements in maybe up to about 30 countries [and] these measurements are miniscule, often below levels of background radiation.and they do not constitute a public health risk.”

WHO, not too incidentally, has a formal arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in place since both were established at the UN in the 1950s, to say nothing about issues involving radiation without clearing it with the IAEA, which was set up to specifically promote atomic energy. On Chernobyl, together in an initiative called the “Chernobyl Forum,” they have claimed that “less than 50 deaths have been directly attributed” to that disaster and “a total of up to 4,000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.” That nuclear Big Lie precedes the new nuclear deception involving the impacts of Fukushima.

As to background radiation, Dr. Jeffrey Patterson, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Public Health, says: “We do live with background radiation-but it does cause cancer.” That’s why there is concern, he notes, about radon gas being emitted in homes from a breakdown of uranium in some soils. “That’s background [radiation] but it’s not safe. There are absolutely no safe levels of radiation” and adding more radiation “adds to the health impacts.”

“There has been a cover-up, a minimization of the effects of radioactivity since the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear technology,” says Dr. Patterson. Meanwhile, with the Fukushima disaster, “large populations of people are being randomly exposed to radiation that they didn’t ask for, they didn’t agree to.”

Dr. Steven Wing, an epidemiologist who has specialized in the effects of radioactivity at the School of Public Health of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said: “The generally accepted thinking about the safe dose is that, no, there is no safe dose in terms of the cancer or genetic effects of radiation. The assumption of most people is that there’s a linear, no-threshold dose response relationship and that just means that as the dose goes down the risk goes down, but it never disappears.”

Of the claims of “no threat to health” from the radioactivity emitted from Fukushima, that “just flies in the face of all the standard models and all the studies that have been done over a long period of time of radiation and cancer.”

“As the radiation clouds move away from Fukushima and move far away to other continents and around the world, the doses are spread out,” notes Dr. Wing. “But it’s important for people to know that spreading out a given amount of radiation dose among more people, although it reduces each person’s individual risk, it doesn’t reduce the number of cancers that result from that amount of radiation. So having millions and millions of people exposed to a very small dose could produce just as much cancer as a thousand or a few thousand people exposed to that same dose.”

He believes “we should be focusing on putting pressure on people in government and the energy industry to come up with an energy policy that minimizes harm,” is a “sane energy policy.” Those who have “led us into this situation” have caused “big problems.”

And they are still at it-even with radioactivity still coming out at Fukushima and expected to for months. On Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, the “Special Summit on New Nuclear Energy” will be held, organized by the U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council.

Council members include General Electric, since 2006 in partnership in its nuclear plant manufacturing business with the Japanese corporation Hitachi.

Other members of the council, notes its information on the summit, include the Nuclear Energy Institute; Babcock & Wilcox, the manufacturer of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant which underwent a partial meltdown in 1979; Duke Energy, a U.S. utility long a booster of nuclear power; the Tennessee Valley Authority, a U.S. government-created public power company heavily committed to nuclear power; Uranium Producers of America; and AREVA, the French government-financed nuclear power company that has been moving to expand into the U.S. and worldwide.

Also participating in the summit as speakers will be John Kelly, an Obama administration Department of Energy deputy assistant for nuclear reactor technologies; William Magwood, a nuclear power advocate who is a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Matthew Milazzo representing an entity called the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future set up by the Obama administration; and Congressmen Mike Simpson of Idaho, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee Interior & Environment and Ed Whitfield of Kentucky, chairman of the House Energy & Power Subcommittee, both staunch nuclear power supporters.

Other participants, according to the program for the event, will be “senior executives and thought leaders from the who’s who of the U.S. new nuclear community.” Bruce Llewelyn, who hosts “White House Chronicle” on PBS television, is listed as the summit’s “moderator.”

There will be programs on the “State of the Renaissance,” “China, India & Emerging Global Nuclear Markets,” “Advancing Nuclear Technology” and “Lessons from Fukushima.”

As the nuclear Pinocchios lie, the nuclear promoters push ahead.

Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, has focused on investigative reporting on energy and environmental issues for more than 40 years. He is the host of the nationally-aired TV program Enviro Close-Up and the author of numerous books.

Source of this item

P.S. Lots of great nuke-related quotes here

A friend & I were walking together the other day & the term “near death experience” came up. For some reason the phrase “near life experience” popped right into my head.

And what immediately followed was the thought that I suspect there are people so afraid of living – really, really living, full out – that they might as well be having a near life experience.

Me, I like to think I live full out. Not afraid to die (or not super-afraid, at any rate!), not afraid to live.

(I wonder if the people who hang so tenaciously onto life – fear death & can’t seem to let go – have also for the most part been afraid to live for most of their lives. Afraid to die… because they’ve never really lived.)

Heck, I dunno. Just speculating here.

I do think it’s too bad that so many of us seem to spend so much of our lives being afraid. Afraid to live, afraid to take risks, afraid to make changes, afraid to tell the truth…etc. etc.

But then, the wise folks tell us we’ve been living in a fear-based culture for thousands of years.

Sounds pretty right-on to me!

Here’s to life (Life!) experiences – not sad, pathetic near-life ones!!

Janet

P.S. I wrote about a “near death experience” here.

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “Safety is the most unsafe spiritual path you can take. Safety keeps you numb and dead. People are caught by surprise when it is time to die. They have allowed themselves to live so little.” – Stephen Levine

Not exactly what you want to hear, I’m sure…but I never said I was running a popularity contest here!

Please take a look at the Web site of the Ontario Clean Air Alliance & consider signing up for the “No Nukes News” (the latest issue of which is where I saw Fukushima being described as worse than you think).

The latest issue (dated June 20th) is dynamite – as are all NNN issues!

It always has great quotations & links to a # of articles on the global nuclear scene.

Current issue has many items relating to the Fukushima disaster, info on the current Nebraska flooding/nuke situation & a link for an article about Canada being poorly prepared for nuclear emergencies.

Sign up!

Janet

P.S. There is a petition you can sign here (this info is also from the No Nukes News).

‘Quote of the day’ with this post: “Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind” – Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president (lots of other great nuke-related quotes here)

Sooooo cool.

Just picked up a copy of The Book of Awesome & want to buy about 100 copies & hand them out to everyone I know – & any sad-eyed strangers I happen to meet.

Such a wonderful idea & book!!

(I hadn’t checked out the 1000 Awesome Things Web site. Though I have my own blog, I’m usually kept pretty busy just writing/working/processing routine emails & things, so I don’t “surf” the Internet, really, at all.)

I happened to be in a bookstore to pick up another book, & spotted The Book of Awesome & couldn’t resist.

The book made me smile – & laugh – & even brought a tear to my eye & … listen!

The world’s in lotsa trouble. Heaven alone knows what’s coming around the next bend. Could get pretty awful! We need to work to keep our spirits up (at least that’s what I think!)

Get yourself a copy of The Book of Awesome &/or borrow a copy from the library &/or from a friend, & … you will not be sorry!

Janet

P.S. Just a few awesome things the author enjoys that I do as well:

1. Popping bubble wrap (page 29)
2. Bakery air (page 48)
3. Using hotel lobby bathrooms when you’re out walking around (page 55)
4. A long hug when you really need it (page 176)
5. When you hear someone’s smile over the phone (page 260)
6. The first shower you take after not showering for a really long time (page 325)
7. Finding money in your old coat pocket (page 365)

Well. I could go on….

Just buy/borrow the book & give yourself a little joy, willya??

P.P.S. ‘You made my day’ take 1 is here & ‘Awesome!’ take 1 is here

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African proverb

Sitting in a hospital Emergency Room recently, I finally read the cute tiny “Zen” book(1) I bought years ago but hadn’t yet read.

It has this version of a ‘Zen story’ I’d heard in a slightly different form:

“A Zen monk and his student approached a wide river. On its bank stood a pitiful beggar. “I must cross, but I am afraid of drowning,” said the beggar.

“I will carry you,” replied the monk. His student did not trust the beggar and followed closely in order to protect his master, but soon the monk delivered the beggar to the far shore.

For one month, the student lamented his master’s lack of caution. Finally, he confronted the monk.

“I carried this man for a brief moment,” the monk laughed. “You have carried him for thirty days.”

Ahhhhhh yes. Letting go, eh??

Soooooo good for our souls…

Janet

P.S. Had this funny thought last night, eating my Korean meal with chopsticks: Heck, it’s easy to be Zen while eating with chopsticks. It slows you down so (well, it slows me down anyway; I am not terribly proficient with chopsticks!). The food might make it to one’s mouth on this attempt; it might not. Whatever…

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

For some reason this phrase popped into my head this morning. It just seems … true. (Although it ought to go without saying that there are exceptions to every “rule,” & also that there are clearly also women who don’t apologize…of course!)

A couple of recent experiences have brought this to the fore. Details not the slightest bit important.

Men & the lack of apologies are all tied in with patriarchy (in my opinion).

We’ve lived in a patriarchal culture for 5000 years (according to the “experts”) – & while many, many, many strides have been made by & for women in the past, oh, 40 or 50 years, you don’t wipe out an overwhelming, overarching system like patriarchy in a few short decades. If only!

After being told for generation upon generation that men are better than women – smarter than women – & ought to be & are in charge of everything on Earth – & after untold generations of war & male mistreatment of women & children (still ongoing today, of course, to greater & lesser degrees depending on the geography involved), male privilege & entitlement are very deeply ingrained indeed.

I know men who (still) clearly act as though they know everything about everything…& who are more than ready to pronounce (ostensibly knowledgably) on subjects about which they actually know absolutely nothing. Even when you put inconvenient facts & truths right in front of them, they outright refuse to see the noses right in front of their faces.

It’s pretty astonishing to witness this!

(Now me, of course, I’d have been burned at the stake lickety-split in the old, old days, for being so darn “uppity.” So would many of the women I know & love best. We are a feisty bunch, & feistiness has not always been greatly valued … in women.)

Well. So. Back to apologies, eh?

If you’re from the so-called “superior” sex – & you’re assumed to know absolutely everything about absolutely everything (even though this is quite clearly impossible for ANYone on the planet, whatever one’s gender), & this has been burned into your consciousness from the day you were born (even though you might not be consciously aware of it), I guess it’s pretty darn hard to admit that there is something you don’t know, or might be wrong about, & should perhaps consider apologizing for.

I guess the men who are constitutionally incapable of allowing apologies to cross their lips haven’t ever heard these lovely words from Margaret Lee Runbeck: “Apology is a lovely perfume; it can transform the clumsiest moment into a gracious gift.”

********

There’s a man (or two) I feel could stand to offer me an apology (or two) for a thing (or two) he/they have done or said (& please know that I am quick to offer apologies myself when I screw up, which happens plenty, or I wouldn’t dare expect others to do so!) – but I’m not exactly holding my breath on hearing those lovely words “I’m sorry for that shitty stuff I did/said” because I know quite well by now that … men don’t apologize!

Janet

P.S. Of course, some men DO apologize, & thanks to the Universe for that!!! Some men are big enough to say those important words “I’m sorry” or “I was wrong” – thank goodness!! And trust me, I am not remotely interested in seeing men being emasculated. One does not have a ton of respect for men who are doormats. Heck, one doesn’t respect people of either sex who have become doormats. Compassion for them? Sure. But not respect. (Making apologies does not make one less of a man – or woman, for that matter… It makes one more of one.)

P.P.S. Coupla relevant book recommendations that spring to mind: The Chalice and the Blade – Our History, Our Future, by Riane Eisler. Becoming the Kind Father – A Son’s Journey, by Calvin Sandborn. Even the book I am currently reading, My Life So Far, by Jane Fonda, has a lot of very interesting stuff in it about female/male dynamics & the wheres & whyfors of war & some ways in which some of this old, awful stuff can be laid to rest. Ms. Fonda has had a fascinating (& inspiring!) life…& there are lots of great quotations in her book, too!!

P.P.P.S. Several months after I posted this, I posted an item called ‘Men: 12 Things I’ve Learned.’ [since re-named '12 Things I've Learned About Men.]

P.S. # 4: 6 months after posting this. Well hooey!! One of the men referred to as possibly owing me an apology, actually apologized to me. Change is always possible, isn’t it???

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “A clear conscience is more valuable than wealth.” – Filipino proverb

Runners-up for quote of the day:

“Revenge has no more quenching effect on emotions than salt water has on thirst.” – Walter Weckler

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” – James Baldwin

“Anger is often more harmful than the injury that caused it.” – English proverb

“Holding onto a resentment is like eating rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.” – Anne Lamott in “Crooked Little Heart”

I receive a lot of e-mail about nuclear matters. & do fairly frequent postings about nuclear matters, too. It isn’t as though I really want to think about this stuff, it’s rather that I feel compelled to do so. & to pass along some of what I am hearing about.

Here are some recent news item links:

Fukushima: The Crisis is not Over

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Fukushima residents urine now radioactive

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Radiation in Our Food

The ocean around large areas of Japan has been contaminated by toxic radioactive agents including cesium, iodine, plutonium and strontium. These radioactive agents are accumulating in sea life. Fish, shellfish and sea vegetables are absorbing this radiation, while airborne radioactive particles have contaminated land-based crops in Japan, including spinach and tea grown 200 miles south of the damaged nuclear plants. Meanwhile, on U.S. soil, radiation began to show up in samples of milk tested in California, just one month after the plants were damaged. Radiation tests conducted since the nuclear disaster in Japan have detected radioactive iodine and cesium in milk and vegetables produced in California. According to tests conducted by scientists at the UC Berkeley Department of Nuclear Engineering, milk from grass fed cows in Sonoma County was contaminated with cesium 137 and cesium 134. Milk sold in Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Vermont and Washington has also tested positive for radiation since the accident. Additionally, drinking water tested in some U.S. municipalities also shows radioactive contamination. Is the fallout from Fukushima Daichi falling on us? Yes, it is.

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Fukushima children test positive for internal radiation exposure

Traces of cesium-134 and 137 isotopes found in urine tests on 10 children in city near stricken nuclear power plant

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Dr. Helen Caldicott: Fukushima Meltdown Much Worse Than Chernobyl

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Nuclear Power and Women

Fallout! (do watch this!!) A 13 minute, 60-Minutes video report on Fukushima & Chernobyl

Second Japan Nuke… More Dangerous Than Fukushima? 10 minute video interview with Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear (also a must-see!)

Who Controls the Nuclear Control Agencies? Not as recent an item, but highly relevant still!

Note: Most of these items came from 2 recent issues of the No Nukes News – to which you can subscribe if you wish. Check it out! (& btw, both recent issues have plenty more good items in them!!)

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “Anyone who has one iota of a brain or humility could only conclude that nuclear power is insane!” – Anne Hansen

So, I set out on this bike ride recently, & it was really windy. I had my heart set on a long ride to a particular destination – but I knew if I biked that long way east, I’d wind up fighting the strong wind my whole way back.

Well, I really wanted that long ride, so away I went. Had the longest bike ride I’d had in years.

Headed back & oh dear, it was a bit of a brute. I thought “Well, I guess it probably makes sense to stay on Lakeshore Road; it will be more direct & straighter than the Waterfront Trail.”

But oh…the traffic lights…the reflected heat off the pavement, & most especially, the stress of watching for cars. The cars, cars, cars, cars.

I thought, “Frig it. I’m going back down to the trail, & the lake, & more direct/faster route be damned.”

So I did.

& back down on the trail, on & near the lake, it was heavenly. Trees, shade, beauty – I barely even noticed the wind!

It could have gone badly, of course. I could have wound up regretting my choice.

But you know?

If I have to tackle a challenging “assignment” – bike ride, Life – I’d sure rather do it the slower, prettier, more fun & more pleasant way. Life’s too darn short to do it the hard, slogging way.

That’s what I think, anyway.

Janet

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” – Victor Frankl

“Moving Planet is a worldwide rally to demand solutions to the climate crisis—a single day to move away from fossil fuels. For too long, our leaders have denied and delayed, compromised and caved. That era must come to an end.

Come on bike, on skates, on a board, or just on foot. Come with your neighbors and your friends, your family and your co-workers. Come be part of something huge. It’s time to get moving on the climate crisis.”

Check out the 350.org site here for more info!

‘Quote of the day‘ w. this post: “So-called global warming is just a secret ploy by wacko tree-huggers to make America energy-independent, clean our air and water, improve fuel-efficiency of our vehicles, kickstart 21st century industries, and make our cities safer and more livable. Don’t let them get away with it!” – Chip Giller, founder of Grist.org

Been doing a little garden weeding lately. One of the thoughts I’ve had while doing so was that I bet the ‘creeping charley’ “weed” in many relationships is probably simple lack of appreciation of one’s partner (or call it “taking one another for granted”; take your pick!). Another thing: sometimes you pull a weed & are taken aback by all the root it brings along with it. So much going on underground, not obvious or even visible to the naked eye. We humans have a lot going on down underground too, don’t we? We are kind of like icebergs. So much going on underneath, at the subterranean level…

*****

Well, on my walk this morning (too hot, too hot!!), my thoughts were all over the map – although admittedly, this is not terribly unusual. What’s unusual is my doing a blog post that is basically a jumble. So shoot me!

*****

One thought was that I feel kind of pulled in two lately. There are things I sort of feel I “should” be doing, given the state of the world (which is, in short, pretty scary! Economic disasters, nuclear disasters, climate change…need I go on??). But my heart seems to be pulling in the opposite direction. What is a person to do??

P.P.S. The ‘Zen story’ I promised: “A man travelling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man then saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other…………… How sweet it tasted.”

The nuclear industry has lots of secrets (& lies).

One of the big ones is the nastiness of uranium mining: the environmental damage it causes, the human health impacts, & the messes it leaves behind.

I’m not particularly knowledgeable about it, so I’m not going to say much. Just going to point readers to a few sites where they can learn more.

The U.S.-based Earthworks group has a 2-pager called “Uranium Mining 101.” You can find it here.

Earthworks also has a longer report on uranium mining, called “Nuclear Power’s Other Tragedy - Communities Living with Uranium Mining.”

There is a very powerful & disturbing 12-minute YouTube about uranium mining in Australia here. I want to praise this tiny film for its hard-hitting lessons & world-renowned experts (Dr. Rosalie Bertell & Dr. Helen Caldicott). I also want to warn potential viewers about its very disturbing images of babies born with severe birth defects caused by in-utero exposure to depleted uranium (a man-made substance that personifies evil, in my view). Well worth seeing & sharing around.

The book “This is My Homeland” (edited by Lorraine Rekmans) is about the impacts of uranium mining on the Anishinabe people of the Serpent River watershed, near Elliot Lake, Ontario (Canada). It’s a moving story, well told, in a diversity of voices.

You can also find plenty of information about uranium (& lots of other nuke-related topics) at the Web site of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility.

Janet

p.s. the 47-minute NFB (National Film Board) documentary “Uranium” is a fabulous resource & introduction to this topic!!! Watch it on-line here

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “You can guarantee that mining uranium will lead to nuclear waste. You can’t guarantee that mining uranium will not lead to nuclear weapons.” – Anthony Albanese, Australian Labour Party, quoted in New York Times, Aug. 2, 2006

Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein, Wendell Berry Call for Civil Disobedience on Tar Sands

From June 23rd, original found here

Today, a group of eleven leading activists and environmentalists released a letter calling for people to join them in Washington DC this August to take part in civil disobedience to help stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Want to join in? You can sign up to take part here.

Dear Friends,

This will be a slightly longer letter than common for the internet age—it’s serious stuff.

The short version is we want you to consider doing something hard: coming to Washington in the hottest and stickiest weeks of the summer and engaging in civil disobedience that will likely get you arrested.

The full version goes like this:

As you know, the planet is steadily warming: 2010 was the warmest year on record, and we’ve seen the resulting chaos in almost every corner of the earth.

And as you also know, our democracy is increasingly controlled by special interests interested only in their short-term profit.

These two trends collide this summer in Washington, where the State Department and the White House have to decide whether to grant a  certificate of ‘national interest’ to some of the biggest fossil fuel players on earth. These corporations want to build the so-called ‘Keystone XL Pipeline’ from Canada’s tar sands to Texas refineries.

To call this project a horror is serious understatement. The tar sands have wrecked huge parts of Alberta, disrupting ways of life in indigenous communities—First Nations communities in Canada, and tribes along the pipeline route in the U.S. have demanded the destruction cease. The pipeline crosses crucial areas like the Oglalla Aquifer where a spill would be disastrous—and though the pipeline companies insist they are using ‘state of the art’ technologies that should leak only once every 7 years, the precursor pipeline and its pumping stations have leaked a dozen times in the past year. These  local impacts alone would be cause enough to block such a plan. But the Keystone Pipeline would also be a fifteen hundred mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent, a way to make it easier and faster to trigger the final overheating of our planet, the one place to which we are all indigenous.

How much carbon lies in the recoverable tar sands of Alberta? A recent calculation from some of our foremost scientists puts the figure at about 200 parts per million.  Even with the new pipeline they won’t be able to burn that much overnight—but each development like this makes it easier to get more oil out.  As the climatologist Jim Hansen (one of the signatories to this letter) explained, if we have any chance of getting back to a stable climate “the principal requirement is that coal emissions must be phased out by 2030 and unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands, must be left in the ground.” In other words, he added, “if the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over.” The Keystone pipeline is an essential part of the game. “Unless we get increased market access, like with Keystone XL, we’re going to be stuck,” said Ralph Glass, an economist and vice-president at AJM Petroleum Consultants in Calgary, told a Canadian newspaper last week.

Given all that, you’d suspect that there’s no way the Obama administration would ever permit this pipeline. But in the last few months the president has signed pieces of paper opening much of Alaska to oil drilling, and permitting coal-mining on federal land in Wyoming that will produce as much CO2 as 300 power plants operating at full bore.

And Secretary of State Clinton has already said she’s ‘inclined’ to recommend the pipeline go forward. Partly it’s because of the political commotion over high gas prices, though more tar sands oil would do nothing to change that picture. But it’s also because of intense pressure from industry. TransCanada Pipeline, the company behind Keystone, has hired as its chief lobbyist for the project a man named Paul Elliott, who served as deputy national director of Clinton’s presidential campaign. Meanwhile, the US Chamber of Commerce—a bigger funder of political campaigns than the RNC and DNC combined—has demanded that the administration “move quickly to approve the Keystone XL pipeline,” which is not so surprising—they’ve also told the U.S. EPA that if the planet warms that will be okay because humans can ‘adapt their physiology’ to cope. The Koch Brothers, needless to say, are also backing the plan, and may reap huge profits from it.

So we’re pretty sure that without serious pressure the Keystone Pipeline will get its permit from Washington.  A wonderful coalition of environmental groups has built a strong campaign across the continent—from Cree and Dene indigenous leaders to Nebraska farmers, they’ve spoken out strongly against the destruction of their land. We need to join them, and to say even if our own homes won’t be crossed by this pipeline, our joint home—the earth—will be wrecked by the carbon that pours down it.

And we need to say something else, too: it’s time to stop letting corporate power make the most important decisions our planet faces.

We don’t have the money to compete with those corporations, but we do have our bodies, and beginning in mid August many of us will use them. We will, each day through Labor Day, march on the White House, risking arrest with our trespass. We will do it in dignified fashion, demonstrating that in this case we are the conservatives, and that our foes—who would change the composition of the atmosphere are dangerous radicals. Come dressed as if for a business meeting—this is, in fact, serious business. And another sartorial tip—if you wore an Obama button during the 2008 campaign, why not wear it again? We very much still want to believe in the promise of that young Senator who told us that with his election the ‘rise of the oceans would begin to slow and the planet start to heal.’ We don’t understand what combination of bureaucratic obstinacy and insider dealing has derailed those efforts, but we remember his request that his supporters continue on after the election to pressure the government for change. We’ll do what we can.

And one more thing: we don’t want college kids to be the only cannon fodder in this fight. They’ve led the way so far on climate change—10,000 came to DC for the Powershift gathering earlier this spring. They’ve marched this month in West Virginia to protest mountaintop removal; Tim DeChristopher faces sentencing this summer in Utah for his creative protest.  Now it’s time for people who’ve spent their lives pouring carbon into the atmosphere (and whose careers won’t be as damaged by an arrest record) to step up too. Most of us signing this letter are veterans of this work, and we think it’s past time for elders to behave like elders. One thing we don’t want is a smash up: if you can’t control your passions, this action is not for you.

This won’t be a one-shot day of action. We plan for it to continue for several weeks, to the date in September when by law the administration can either grant or deny the permit for the pipeline. Not all of us can actually get arrested—half the signatories to this letter live in Canada, and might well find our entry into the U.S. barred. But we will be making plans for sympathy demonstrations outside Canadian consulates in the U.S., and U.S. consulates in Canada—the decision-makers need to know they’re being watched.

Winning this battle won’t save the climate. But losing it will mean the chances of runaway climate change go way up—that we’ll endure an endless future of the floods and droughts we’ve seen this year. And we’re fighting for the political future too—for the premise that we should make decisions based on science and reason, not political connection.  You have to start somewhere, and this is where we choose to begin.

If you think you might want to be a part of this action, we need you to sign up here. As plans solidify in the next few weeks we’ll be in touch with you to arrange nonviolence training; our colleagues at a variety of environmental and democracy campaigns will be coordinating the actual arrangements.

We know we’re asking a lot. You should think long and hard on it, and pray if you’re the praying type. But to us, it’s as much privilege as burden to get to join this fight in the most serious possible way. We hope you’ll join us.

• Maude Barlow
• Wendell Berry
• Tom Goldtooth
• Danny Glover
• James Hansen
• Wes Jackson
• Naomi Klein
• Bill McKibben
• George Poitras
• David Suzuki

*** Great 1 1/2 minute Rick Mercer rant on asbestos here!!

I’ve had a # of e-mail messages recently about the Canadian government’s refusal to engage on this issue with any integrity. Our so-called “leader” (Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper) has once again embarrassed Canadians on the world stage.

The Green Party of Canada has been running a “We’re sorry” campaign. From a recent GPC message:

“On Friday, June 24, the Conservative government once again embarrassed our country on the international stage. Canada alone prevented the United Nations from adding chrysotile asbestos to the global list of hazardous substances.

Here in Canada, we won’t allow asbestos in our homes and offices. We are spending millions to remove it from our Parliament buildings. We know asbestos is hazardous.

Yet year after year our government refuses to let the world officially recognize it as hazardous, because they want to continue to export it to developing countries without even a warning label.

Our government has behaved shamefully on this issue.”

The Canadian Nurses Association recently passed a resolution to Ban the Mining, Production, Use and Export of Asbestos and Other Measures to Reduce Loss of Life From Asbestos-Related Disease.

The Prevent Cancer Now group has also been campaigning on this issue. They have plenty of resources on it here – including fact sheets, newspaper article links & suggestions for individual & group action.

From the Prevent Cancer Now Web site: “The following Canadian organizations have called for a ban on asbestos:

Prevent Cancer Now, Ban Asbestos Canada, Breast Cancer Action Montreal, Breast Cancer Research Education Fund, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, Canadian Association of University Teachers, Canadian Auto Workers, Canadian Building Trades Council and all provincial building trades unions (including Quebec), Canadian Cancer Society, Canadian Environmental Law Association, Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy, Canadian Labour Congress, Canadian Teachers’ Federation, Canadian Union of Public Employees, CARWAH (Canadian Association of Researchers in Work and Health), Clean Production Action, David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, MiningWatch Canada, Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers, Ontario College of Family Physicians, Ontario Teachers’ Federation, Prevent Cancer Now, Rideau Institute for International Affairs, Saunders-Matthey Cancer Prevention Coalition, Sierra Club of Canada, Toxic-Free Canada, Women’s Healthy Environments Network.”

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “…we mine asbestos, we ship it, we make money from it, and we’ll use every diplomatic trick in the book to defend this odious practice. We are the Ugly Canadians.” – Globe & Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson June 25/11.

<June 3/11>

On today’s glorious bike ride alongside Lake Ontario, it came to me that I’d like to award a series of honorary doctorate degrees to a number of individuals & groups/organizations that are fine upstanding examples of some wonderful (sometimes awful) human qualities/tendencies/achievements.

To the podium, PULLESE!

• All my women friends – for doctorate degrees in “We sure know how to have fun!!” We have challenging families/lives/partners/jobs/divorces/illnesses/you-name-it – but we sure still know how to laugh & have fun!

• Failure to thrive awards to a # of people for whom I feel considerable compassion for their persistent failure/refusal to grow & to open themselves up to the great joy & potential that is available to all of us here on Planet Earth – provided we choose to yank our heads out of our own backsides, choose joy, & learn to live in the present moment!

• Ph.D.’s in Deliberate Obfuscation/Deceit to the nuclear industry in general (geez, probably MOST corporations, as far as that goes) & the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in particular for cloaking their operations in secrecy & deceit & junk science & high-falutin’ pseudo-scientific jargon so “average” citizens will stay away in DROVES – & allow them to keep right on with their planet-destroying, nuclear waste-creating, inevitable nuclear accident-making (& clearly very-very-very profitable) efforts to ruin our beautiful planet forever. Creeps.

• Ph.D.’s in human excellence to the 10’s & 100’s & 10’s of 1000’s of stubborn, brave, determined souls who do NOT ignore the evidence of our eyes & ears that our wonderful, incomparable, abundant, beautiful planet is being hacked & polluted to bits. We may lose “the war” but we will sure go down trying!!! & caring, & being inspired by one another to keep right on keeping on.

• Ph.D.’s in Pooh-Poohing to all those people/institutions feeling the need to persistently pooh-pooh (& otherwise block) any signs of growth or inspiration or change among the people/institutions in their lives – & who hang on to their power, such as it is – in their too-often successful attempts to impose their own failure to grow/change/evolve on people & a world they only claim to love & care about. Bums.

Janet

‘Quote of the day’w. this post: “Don’t fight forces – use them.” – Buckminster Fuller

Runners-up:“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” (Albert Einstein, 1879 – 1955) & “Life is change…Growth is optional…Choose wisely…” (Karen Kaiser Clark) & “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the one most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” (Charles Darwin)

At their recent Annual General Meeting, the Canadian Nurses Association passed several environmental resolutions.

You can find the resolution about The Prevention of Childhood Lead Poisoning in Canada Occurring from Exposure to Lead-based Paint and Other Domestic Sources of Lead here.

If you are like many people I encounter & understand very little about the lead issue, here are 2 things to know:

1. You are not alone!
2. There is plenty of information about lead on this blog. All the posts are listed & linked here. Plenty of useful resources included, from YouTubes to articles & good Web sites.

They say knowledge is power. They also say ignorance is bliss.

I say, what we don’t know can very definitely hurt us!

The lead issue is not a pretty one. But it won’t go away just because we pretend it isn’t there.

When a conservative group such as a national nursing organization endorses a resolution on a health matter like this one, you know it’s time to listen up!

Janet

P.S. Great quote about lead: “Lead moves us down the stupid scale and doesn’t let us come back.” - Stephen Collette, environmental building consultant & certified building biologist

Life seldom proceeds in accordance with our careful plans. So I am wont to pronounce from time to time.

Once upon a time, I had a tiny, perfect life – or so I fervently believed at the time. Then, one day, it blew right up in my face.

Marvellous fodder for personal growth, of course. For learning about control, & letting go, & living one day at a time (one moment at a time!) … & all that jazz.

I wrote a little essay once, quite a few years ago now, about how I’d gone to a restaurant for a very late Saturday afternoon lunch, with my heart (well, my stomach) set on having pizza. I wound up eating something else altogether – only because pizza was simply not on the menu. In other words, I really had no choice. It was out of my hands (rather the way my life seemed to have been for some time).

Well. Around the same time I was reading Thomas Moore’s book Care of the Soul(1).

In it he wrote “This … dream reminded me of another I had heard years before, in which a man was in a restaurant and ordered a steak; instead he was served a large platter of beans. That dream sounded like a Zen story to me and led me to reflect for a long time on the value of plain pedestrian food, especially when we consciously order up something more special. Life has a way of plopping extreme ordinariness in front of us when we are entertaining exotic gourmet daydreams.”

I just loved that.

He had utterly nailed something there that sure resonated for me!

So, there you go.

Beans.

Beans happen!

Janet

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” ~ Joseph Campbell, US folklorist & expert on mythology (1904 – 1987)

The Canadian Nurses Association passed 3 environmentally-oriented resolutions at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in June 2011. All the resolutions from the AGM are listed here

Here is the preamble to the one about nuclear energy.

BE IT RESOLVED THAT the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) in collaboration with member associations

· Reaffirm support for the principles of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act 1999 specifically the precautionary principle in respect to fuels, air and water pollution

· Promote a moratorium on construction of new nuclear power plants and the phasing out of present nuclear reactors

· Lobby provincial/territorial and federal governments for funding to identify best practices for conserving and reducing energy consumption and for safer alternative energy resources.

You can find the rest of it here

Janet

P.S. Plenty of great quotations about nukes here

66 years ago the world entered a new age. The nuclear age.

The United States dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki (August 6th & August 9th), & if human beings had ever known innocence, it was surely lost when those bombs were dropped.

Archbishop DESMOND TUTU, Nobel Peace Prize winner, has recently said:

“ELIMINATING NUCLEAR WEAPONS IS THE DEMOCRATIC WISH OF THE WORLD’S PEOPLE…

“We must not tolerate a system of nuclear apartheid in which it is considered legitimate for some states to possess nuclear weapons but patently unacceptable for others to seek to acquire them…

“Every dollar invested in bolstering a country’s nuclear arsenal is a diversion of resources from its schools, hospitals and other social services, and a theft from the millions around the globe who go hungry or are denied access to basic medicines…

“THE ONLY OBSTACLE WE FACE IN ABOLISHING NUCLEAR WEAPONS IS THE LACK OF POLITICAL WILL, WHICH CAN – AND MUST – BE OVERCOME.

“In time, every government will ….work to achieve a world in which such weapons are no more – where the rule of law, not the rule of force, reigns supreme………But SUCH A WORLD WILL ONLY BE POSSIBLE IF PEOPLE EVERYWHERE RISE UP AND CHALLENGE THE NUCLEAR MADNESS.”

If you’d like to learn a little more about the myth of the “necessity” of dropping the bombs on Japan to end World War II, you can go here to listen to a radio clip by Gar Alperowitz on Alternative Radio.

You can also read a book called Hiroshima in America: Fifty Years of Denial.

I will attend a Hiroshima Day event in Toronto, Ontario (Canada) on Hiroshima Day – my own small way of “rising up and challenging the nuclear madness.”

Janet

Today, August 9^th, 2011 marks the 66^th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Nagasaki (August 6^th was the 66^th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing).

By coincidence, I’ve recently (finally) been reading the book Atomic Accomplice – How Canada deals in deadly deceit, published in 2009 by award-winning Canadian journalist Paul McKay.

Its revelations are shocking – even to me, an anti-nuclear activist (only relatively recently focused on nuclear issues, mind you, after 20 years focused mostly elsewhere).

I’ve written before about the tendency for Canadians to be a tad smug about how “great” we are. Funnily enough, lots of Americans seem to think we are somehow kinda special too. I don’t want to minimize how grateful I am to have been born in this beautiful, safe country. We do have universally accessible health care, & rights to free speech, & we do probably say “please” & “thank you” & “I’m sorry” more than the inhabitants of any other place in the world – but we are all deceived if we think our corporate & political spheres are any less corrupt & self-serving than those south of the border. Just think tar sands & climate change & asbestos, hmmm?

Well, McKay’s book blows us all right out of the water on the nuclear/global arms/nuclear weapons front.

“Canada has been dealing atoms since 1942, when the Mackenzie King war cabinet approved joining the Allied nuclear bomb effort known as the Manhattan Project. It supplied key ingredients to U.S. production plants and weapons laboratories making the weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” (Page 15 of Atomic Accomplice.)

And, regarding uranium mining & sales, “With barely a word of international alarm, Saskatchewan has literally staked out and delivered thirty per cent of global uranium production. Rich new reserves promise to keep that market share for decades.” (page 104, Atomic Accomplice.)

There is a review of McKay’s book here

From a different review, though (which has somehow mysteriously disappeared from the Web since I posted this):

“Canada has been dealing atoms since 1942,” he says. “The prevailing myth is that these tragedies [Hiroshima and Nagasaki] ended Canada’s involvement with the military atom. This is false.” For 60 years, he says, Canada has participated in the global dispersal of weapons-related elements, technologies and secrets. Indeed, Canada has helped in the making of nuclear bombs for the United States, Britain, Russia, France, Israel, India and Pakistan and has “dealt atomic supplies and secrets” to Argentina, Taiwan, Romania, South Korea and Communist China.

“Canada now exports 7.3 million kilograms of uranium annually,” he says. “When fissioned in any reactor, this will create 19,000 kilograms of plutonium a year – or enough to make 2,300 warheads annually when extracted from the spent fuel. Canada’s annual exports also contain 52,000 kilograms of fissile uranium-235, enough to make 2,600 atomic bombs each year.

“Because it is essentially immortal, this embedded Canadian plutonium and U-235 will imperil global security for millennia because it will outlast, for all intents and purposes, the rest of human history.” Further: “Plutonium embeds a dimension of destruction that defies the human imagination. A fissioned mass the size of a stick of chewing gum can destroy a city.”

Canada is now the world’s leader in uranium exports and, therefore, the world’s leader in potential plutonium proliferation. These exports generate $1-billion a year in Canadian cash flow but bequeath to the world enough fissile material to make 5,000 nuclear warheads every year. “We are a Boy Scout nation,” Mr. McKay says, “with a very dirty secret.” (Globe & Mail review by Neil Reynolds, January 1, 2010.)

Canadians’ hands are definitively not clean, & the sooner we all get quite clear about that, surely, the better for all of us! As Elizabeth Cady Stanton said, “Truth is the only safe ground to stand on.”

Janet

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “Paul McKay’s Atomic Accomplice provides the history, science, and economic background of the purveyors of nuclear fuel and reactors, and outlines global future energy options to wean ourselves from non-renewable sources. In the end, he is correct in pointing out that only one nuclear furnace – our Sun – is an energy source that is effectively endless, and can promote both peace and prosperity.” – David Suzuki, scientist & broadcaster

P.S. Lots of good nuke-related quotations here, btw.

Nuclear Roulette – The Case Against a “Nuclear Renaissance” is an awesome June 2011 publication I cannot recommend highly enough! The report, from the International Forum on Globalization, is # 5 in a series that focuses on “false solutions to the global climate crisis.”(1)

Good full review of it here (ordering info also available there).

So excellent – both the series, & this report on nukes.

The report project was already underway when the Fukushima disaster hit, & there is some excellent commentary about how that disaster fits into the global nuclear picture.

The foreword by Aileen Mioko-Smith of Green Action (Kyoto) lays out a summary of the 30-year history of anti-nuclear activism in Japan. Since the social & political cultures of Japan are quite different from those of North America, it makes for excellent learning. (On the Green Action blog there is a section devoted to Fukushima updates. Also on the Green Action site is a 5-minute YouTube about the August 7^th benefit concert by the Musicians United for Safe Energy – MUSE – in Mountain View, California.

From the YouTube site: “On August 7th, musicians held a concert to support Japan disaster relief efforts, and organizations worldwide working to promote safe, alternative, non­-nuclear energy. The bill included Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Jason Mraz, The Doobie Brothers, Tom Morello, John Hall, Kitaro, Jonathan Wilson and Sweet Honey in the Rock.

“The disaster in Fukushima is not only a disaster for Japan. It is a global disaster. We come together now across cultural boundaries, political and generational boundaries, to call for changes in the way we use energy, and in the ways we conduct the search for solutions to the problems facing humanity,” says Jackson Browne. “We join with the people of Japan, and people everywhere who believe in a non-nuclear future.”)

Back to “Nuclear Roulette”…

The review here comments “With the book’s rousing prologue, I thought it would climax with an appeal for massive civil disobedience. It does not go there all-out, perhaps because a Gandhian protest movement is barely glimpsed even by many activists in the U.S. Gandhi is quoted in Nuclear Roulette to showcase his awareness of resource domination and waste. Activist Mioko-Smith concludes her section wisely with “Should we take to the streets?”

“It’s not as if the problems and crises with nuclear power are new, such that a shocking report could bring about action. It is sad that nuclear’s evil and nasty poison have been on display — though hidden as best the moneyed interests and corporate media could do — for decades. Except for the unpleasant details of the Fukushima catastrophe, nothing new can be said. It is time for action. Yet, more people must become aware and motivated to act.

& adds: “The question, “who is this book written for” may be answered with “those who have an appetite for more information and who are willing to help put a handy new volume (a large, thin paperback booklet of 76 pages) into circulation.” Every home, school, library and workplace should have a copy of Nuclear Roulette for reference.”

My take is, this report packs a very considerable punch! You can learn enough about the global nuclear scene in this book to educate yourself & become part of the movement away from nuclear. Please go for it! (Please also share the report with friends, family, colleagues & neighbours. Why not also donate a copy to your local library? I did.)

Janet

P.S. Free download of the book here

‘Quote for the day’ w. this post: “The phrase ’spent fuel’ is one of those misleading terms that the nuclear industry is so fond of.  The “spent fuel” is millions of times more radioactive than fresh fuel.  When first removed from the reactor, a single spent fuel assembly can deliver a lethal dose of radiation in just a few seconds to any unshielded person within a metre or two.  In addition, each spent fuel assembly contains hundreds of different radioactive poisons which do not exist in the fresh fuel, but were created as unwanted byproducts inside the nuclear reactor.” - Dr. Gordon Edwards, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility

Runner-up Quote: “Nuclear power has died of an incurable attack of market forces and is way beyond any hope of revival, because the competitors are several fold cheaper and are getting rapidly more so. The competitors I mean are not other central power stations (coal or gas-fired, or big hydro); rather, they’re micropower and efficiency—the big market winners, already bigger than nuclear power worldwide in both capacity and output.” - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

I was yakking with some women friends recently (one of my very favourite things to do! ), & the phrase “Cut the cord” came up. Said with considerable emphasis, I might add.

I got wondering if we might all have something we need to “cut the cord” from:

• Parents who abuse/d us in any one of a myriad possible ways
• Relationships that have exceeded their shelf life
• Interfering in-laws, family members, or friends
• Obsession with memories – both “good” & “bad”
• Our former lives
• Wallowing in self-pity & an “I’m a victim” or “Oh poor me” mentality
• Our many “mistakes” in life
• Guilt…shame…regrets…resentments
• Expectations (of others, of ourselves)
• Bad/unfulfilling jobs
• Male entitlement / old patriarchal ways
• Too much judgment about this, that & the other thing

Well, I had no idea where this little essay was going to go when I sat down to write it. All I had was the phrase “Cut the cord” (& a pen & some paper, of course).

& the list of things to cut the cord from just keeps coming out!

• materialistic lifestyles / obsession with money & things
• an “Everything is all about ME” mentality
• keeping up with the Joneses
• venal politicians
• rapacious corporations
• apathy
• nuclear energy
• attitudes of entitlement & privilege
• complacency & greed
• women who gossip & whine endlessly (Oops!! I’m in a coffee place & being forced to hear more of a conversation than I’d really care to.)

Okay, okay, okay.

Of course, it does take energy to “cut the cord.”

Energy & intention.

So. What have you got planned for the rest of your life? Staying stuck in the same darn old swamp??

Janet

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.” ~ Sarah Bernhardt, actress (1844-1923)

Runners-up: “The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses.” – Edith Sodergran, Scandinavian poet

“What distinguishes one life from another is intention, the one thing that we can control. Rosa Parks’s intentions were deep and unswerving, as were King’s, Thoreau’s, and Gandhi’s … While the events of the world were out of their control, their resolve was not. … How do we sow our seeds when large, well-intentioned institutions and intolerant ideologies that purport to be our salvation cause so much damage? One sure way is through smallness, grace, and locality. Individuals start where they stand and, in Antonio Machado’s poetic dictum, make the road by walking. Thoreau insisted in Civil Disobedience that if only one man withdrew his support from an unjust government, it would begin a cycle that would reverberate and grow. For him there were no inconsequential acts, only consequential inaction: “For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever.” – Paul Hawken in Blessed Unrest – How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming

I’ve written about civil disobedience before, have taken part in some myself, & the odds are good I’ll take part in more – soon! [p.s. yes! Tar sands protest in Ottawa on Sept. 26th. Find out more here]

But it came to me just now that it would be a good idea to compile a list of quotations about civil disobedience – so I’ve just done that & am adding them in below. I’m also adding them to the ‘Quotations Central’ section of the blog, so you’ll be able to find them easily any time you might want to do that. Feel free to send me other good ones, via a comment to the blog. Good quotes are always welcome!!

More & more public figures are calling for massive civil disobedience in the days ahead, since our governments do not appear at all likely to stop acting like anything more than toadies to the corporate monsters that really run our world.

The recent post ‘Tar Sands – Civil Disobedience Called For’ is as relevant as ever. If you can join the party in Washington, go for it!!

If you’d like to read about my own November ’09 experience with civil disobedience/arrest, go here

& now, for the quotes!

First off, though, a ‘Quote for today’: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”  – Dr. Martin Luther King, 1929-1968

Quotations about Civil Disobedience

“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience.” – Dr. Howard Zinn

“You want sanity, democracy, community, an intact Earth? We can’t get there, obeying Constitutional theory and law crafted by slave masters, imperialists, corporate masters, and Nature destroyers. We can’t get there, kneeling before robed lawyers stockpiling class plunder precedent up their venerable sleeves. So isn’t disobedience the challenge of our age? Principled, inventive, escalating disobedience to liberate our souls, to transfigure our work as humans on this Earth.” – Richard Grossman

“You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees.” – Mohandas Gandhi

“If we want ‘sustainability,’ we too need to start with an inner change like Gandhi did, like Nelson Mandela did, like Martin Luther King did, and we should be able to say and demonstrate that ‘My Life is a Message.’ – Kamla Chowdry, Vikram Sarabhai Foundation, Earth Charter Commissioner

“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you sick at heart, that you can’t take part; and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop.” – Mario Savio

“Nothing is more irritating, and, in the final analysis, harmful to a government than to have to deal with people who will not bend to its will, whatever the consequences.” – Jawaharal Nehru

“If [oppression] is of such a nature that it requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy, it is absolutely essential to it.” – Dr. Howard Zinn

“We are made aware of the proverbial forks in the road of life from an early age. Whether at commencement or from the pulpit, we are told there is a convenient path, and a less traveled road of integrity. From a Buddhist perspective, the adage is infinitely true. We face such forks a million times a day, even in the space of a breath. Life is permeated with possibility at every instant. What distinguishes one life from another is intention, the one thing that we can control. Rosa Parks’s intentions were deep and unswerving, as were King’s, Thoreau’s, and Gandhi’s; so, too, were Jo Ann Robinson’s and Virginia Durr’s. While the events of the world were out of their control, their resolve was not.

Maybe the best way to understand the future implications of the movement’s daily actions is to remember Emerson’s moral botany: corn seeds produce corn; justice creates justice; and kindness fosters generosity. How do we sow our seeds when large, well-intentioned institutions and intolerant ideologies that purport to be our salvation cause so much damage? One sure way is through smallness, grace, and locality. Individuals start where they stand and, in Antonio Machado’s poetic dictum, make the road by walking. Thoreau insisted in Civil Disobedience that if only one man withdrew his support from an unjust government, it would begin a cycle that would reverberate and grow. For him there were no inconsequential acts, only consequential inaction: ‘for it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever.’” – Paul Hawken in Blessed Unrest – How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being & Why No One Saw it Coming <Pg. 84-5>

“It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society.” – J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986)

I’ve recently returned to live in Durham Region, east of Toronto, Ontario (Canada). I’ve spent the greater part of my adult life in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), as it happens, but I was (mostly) away for 8 years in there, during which time a big battle on burning garbage has been playing out here.

Turncoat politicians are involved (surprise, surprise! Not). Some were elected on an anti-incineration platform – helped, in some cases, by citizens who’d become involved in their campaigns on that very basis (imagine how angry those citizens are about this!?). There has also been, I am told, intimidation of smaller, less powerful areas of the Region by the head honcho of Durham Region Council (not a popular man, from what I hear, & not elected to this post by the voters of Durham Region).

Gotta say, this is an all-too-familiar kind of scenario.

Big Business has a fancy plan they claim is going to be an “easy” solution to a big environmental issue/problem/crisis.

Highly-paid shills for the particular industry (incinerator, nuclear; take your pick!) appear before the politicians in their expensive suits, deliver their technical & jargon-laden powerpoint presentations, carefully glossing over any inconvenient truths such as health & environmental impacts, & almost invariably snow the bored/unwitting/bought/fill-in-the-blank politicians.

Citizens mobilize. Even medical professionals become involved & protest the plan. (In this case, 75 local doctors signed a petition against the incinerator. You can go here to see some of what the U.S.-based Physicians for Social Responsibility have to say about the risks of incineration.)

But whatever deals went on behind closed doors, took place behind those firmly closed doors.

The deal with Covanta has been struck.

The people it will affect the most – in terms of health impacts that of course are always hard to prove, short of a smoking gun (especially when corrupt boards of health manipulate the statistics in the ways they are so very, very adept at doing; can you say “statistically insignificant”??) will not only be the ones breathing the poisoned air (with no bribes to sweeten our deal) – we get to foot the bill, too!

It’s enough to make you crazy!! (Fortunately, I don’t have far to go! Heh heh. & of course, the inmates are running the asylum anyway, hmm??)

Now, I’m not as “up” on the waste issue (or incineration) as I used to be. I detoured into other areas of activism along the way.

This much I do know:

1. Burning garbage creates dioxins – vastly carcinogenic & dangerous to all living things.
2. Poisoned air really gets around. It is no respecter of borders!
3. What comes out the stack will blow into Lake Ontario, onto farmland & crops downwind, & it will also blow well to the east of Durham Region – so the communities east of this planned nastiness also need to become involved & help put a stop to it!
4. The ash created when you burn garbage is extremely toxic. It has to go somewhere. Apparently the toxic ash from this (combined York & Durham Regions) monstrosity will be shipped to New York state, U.S.A. Great solution! Not…
5. Without citizen involvement, & donations toward the lawsuit underway (go to the Durham CLEAR Web site to find out more), we will be dead ducks on this. Please donate! Write a letter! Talk it up with friends, colleagues, neighbours, family. Buy a T-shirt. I am doing all of the above, so am not asking anyone to do anything I am not prepared to do myself.
6. Not being an “expert”(1) on this topic, I have to rely on the groups that have become the real experts in this issue. Sites I suggest you check out are:

· Durham CLEAR

· Durham Environment Watch

· Prevent Cancer Now

· Resources page here

This issue is like any other, readers – especially fellow residents of Durham Region. If you choose to remain silent about this, your apathy will reap what your inaction inevitably sows. And those consequences will be affecting all of us (including y/our children & grandchildren) for a very long time to come.

Janet

P.S. My other incineration-related posts are found here under a new heading.

‘Quote of the day’ with this post: “The latest scheme masquerading as a rational and responsible alternative to landfills is a nationwide – and worldwide – move to drastically increase the use of incineration… The principal consequence of incineration is thus the transporting of the community’s garbage – in gaseous form, through the air – to neighbouring communities, across state lines, and indeed, to the atmosphere of the entire globe, where it will linger for many years to come. In effect, we have discovered yet another group of powerless people upon whom we can dump the consequences of our own waste; those who live in the future and cannot hold us accountable.” – Al Gore in Earth In The Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit

Runners-up: “Silence is the voice of complicity.” Source unknown

“Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all – the apathy of human beings.” – Helen Keller

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.” – Edmund Burke

“Almost anything you do will seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.” – Ancient Kenyan Proverb

I’ve been reading Raising Elijah – Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis. I’ve been a big fan of its author, Dr. Sandra Steingraber for a long while now.

The book is awesome. Steingraber is a fabulous writer & the book is simply a must-read for anyone who is a parent, might be a parent one day, or is an aunt, uncle, sister, brother, grandparent, or prospective parent/grandparent &/or who gives a darn about the human race. (Does this sufficiently take in everybody??)(1)

In Chapter 2, while discussing her experiences learning about the dangers & health risks of arsenic in pressure-treated wood in a playground structure at her daughter’s nursery school, she introduces the phrase “well-informed futility.” As she explains, the phrase was coined by psychologist Gerhart Wiebe in 1973 & “refers to a particular kind of learned helplessness.”(2) The way it goes is that when we get a lot of information about something we feel we cannot control or “fix,” we experience futility. Of course, futility leads to inaction, even though the very thing that is required is action. And, as Steingraber goes on to say, “Just down the street from well-informed futility resides denial.”

I’m pretty familiar with well-informed futility. I’m always dealing with, & writing about, rapacious corporations (not just rapacious but wildly, wildly planet-destroying!), venal politicians & apathetic, deer-in-the-headlights citizenry. I know lots & lots of people who long ago succumbed to well-informed futility & its evil best friends, denial, apathy & inaction.

Oy!

Tiresome & frustrating, hmmm? Hugely so!

But I ain’t quittin’!

I no longer have faith or hope in the long-term prospects for our species (I’m not even so sure about the short-term ones!?).

But action sure turns my crank a whole lot more than cynicism, futility & apathy do!

Daily contact with nature (through my daily walk or bike ride), activism & time spent with others who are not just sitting whistling Dixie (as they say) – these miraculously keep me joyful & “in the moment.”

After this morning’s walk, I returned to make myself some breakfast & turned on my beloved CBC Radio. Wow!!

Fabulous listening on The Sunday Edition! A 1-hour special by former Toronto mayor David Miller called “The Green Streets and Rivers of New York City.”

It’s about “green” initiatives in NYC – & highlights the need for mayors & cities to take action on climate change (& other environmental issues), since, as NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg points out, state & federal governments are certainly not doing so.

True story!

Well. As I repeat like a broken record, I may have lost hope – but I do still advocate action!

Janet

P.S. Do read Sandra Steingraber! Raising Elijah, Having Faith &/or Living Downstream. All are well worth some of your precious time, I promise you! Ms. Steingraber is a poet, ecologist, cancer survivor, concerned & loving mother, wonderful writer & passionate activist. (See her in the film “Living Downstream” too!)

P.P.S. & listen to the podcast of David Miller’s “The Green Streets and Rivers of New York City.” It’s here (you may have to add the date August 21, 2011 to get to the podcast).

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “Ultimately, the environmental crisis is a parenting crisis. It undermines my ability to carry out two fundamental duties: to protect my children from harm and to plan for their future. My responsibility as a mother thus extends beyond push mowers and clotheslines to the transformation of the nation’s energy systems along renewable lines. Fine. With joy and resolve – and accepting the full severity of the situation vis-à-vis the world’s oxygen-making plankton – I hereby devote myself to the task. When I watch my children breathing in their sleep, it doesn’t feel like a choice. Happily, I’m in good company. And I have this quote for inspiration: ‘Recent studies indicate the U.S. and world could rely 100 percent on green energy sources within 20 years if we dedicate ourselves to that course.’” – Dr. Sandra Steingraber in Raising Elijah

Runners-up: “A woman’s body is (a human being’s) first environment. Whatever contaminants are in a woman’s body find their way into the next generation. I think there is no better argument for the precautionary principle.” – Dr. Sandra Steingraber

“There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation.” – Gaylord Nelson

“You can blame people who knock things over in the dark, or you can begin to light candles. You’re only at fault if you know about the problem and choose to do nothing.” – Paul Hawken, entrepreneur & author

by Angela Bischoff & Tooker Gomberg

Changing the world is a blast. It’s all the more achievable if you have some basic skills, and lots of chutzpah. With apologies to Moses and God, here are our top ‘Ten Commandments For Changing the World.’ Try them out on your issue. Have fun!

But first, some inspiration from Noam Chomsky: “If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that’s something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can’t live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organizations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing it better the next time.”

1. You Gotta Believe.
Have hope, passion and confidence that valuable change can and does happen because individuals take bold initiative.

2. Challenge Authority.
Don’t be afraid to question authority. Authority should be earned, not appointed. The “experts” are often proven wrong (they used to believe that the earth was flat!). You don’t have to be an expert to have a valuable opinion or to speak out on an issue.

3. Know the System. The system perpetuates itself. Use the tools you have – the telephone is the most underrated. The Internet can be of great value for research as well. Learn how decisions are made. How is the bureaucracy structured? Who are the key players? What do they look like? Where do they eat lunch? Go there and talk with them. Get to know their executive assistants. Attend public meetings.

4. Take Action. Do something – anything is better than nothing. Bounce your idea around with friends, and then act. Start small, but think big. Organize public events. Distribute handbills. Involve youth. It’s easier to ask for forgiveness after the fact rather than to ask for permission. Just do it! Be flexible. Roll with the punches and allow yourself to change tactics mid-stream. Think laterally. Don’t get hung-up on money matters; some of the best actions have no budget.

5. Use the media. Letters to the Editor of your local newspaper are read by thousands. Stage a dramatic event and invite the media – they love an event that gives them an interesting angle or good photo. Bypass the mainstream media with email and the World Wide Web to get the word out about your issue and to network.

6. Build Alliances. Seek out common allies such as other community associations, seniors, youth groups, labor, businesses, etc. and work with them to establish support. The system wins through Divide and Conquer, so do the opposite! Network ideas, expertise and issues through email lists. Celebrate your successes with others.

7. Apply Constant Pressure. Persevere; it drives those in power crazy. Be as creative as possible in getting your perspective heard. Use the media, phone your politicians, send letters and faxes with graphics and images. Be concise. Bend the Administration’s ear when you attend public meetings. Take notes. Ask specific questions, and give a deadline for when you expect a response. Stay in their faces.

8. Teach Alternatives. Propose and articulate intelligent alternatives to the status quo. Inspire people with well thought out, attractive visions of how things can be better. Use actual examples, what’s been tried, where and how it works. Do your homework, get the word out, create visual representations. Be positive and hopeful.

9. Learn From your Mistakes. You’re gonna make mistakes; we all do. Critique – in a positive way – yourself, the movement, and the opposition. What works, and why? What isn’t working? What do people really enjoy doing, and do more of that.

10. Take Care of Yourself & Each Other. Maintain balance. Eat well and get regular exercise. Avoid burn-out by delegating tasks, sharing responsibility, and maintaining an open process. Be sensitive to your comrades. Have fun. As much as possible, surround yourself with others (both at work and at play) who share your vision so you can build camaraderie, solidarity and support. Enjoy yourself, and nourish your sense of humour. Remember: you’re not alone!

So there you have it. Tools for the Evolution. You can easily join the millions of people around the world working towards ecological health and sustainability just by doing something. With a bit of effort, and some extraordinary luck, a sustainable future may be assured for us and the planet. Go forth and agitate.

Found on-line here

p.s. more great tips here!

‘Quote for the day’: “Science now knows that while still in diapers, virtually all children exhibit altruistic behavior. Concern for the well-being of others is bred in the bone, endemic and hardwired. We became human by working together and helping one another. According to immunologist Gerald Callahan, faith and love are literally buried in our genes and lymphocytes, and what it takes to arrest our descent into chaos is one person after another remembering who and where they really are.” — Paul Hawken in Blessed Unrest – How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being & Why No One Saw it Coming

<July 8/11>

(This title is just silly, OK?)

I was talking to a dear friend recently who was telling me about how her ex-husband blamed the breakdown of their marriage on … well, never mind, details not important, gotta protect identities here, OK?

What he had said was so ridiculous, I laughed right out loud. (This man’s haste to blame everything & everyone while stubbornly refusing to acknowledge his own role in it is… well… absurd!)

2 thoughts here, 1 silly, 1 serious:

1. Considering what I’ve been blamed for, maybe I’m responsible for causing WWII!
2. History sure does repeat itself! Not just on the global stage, on the very personal one as well. We replay & replay the dramas of our childhoods. Dad was distant? We find a series of men who are “emotionally unavailable.” Mom was cold? Ditto.

Have we not all been there???

I wrote about this once before, I know. The posting called ‘Cases of Mistaken Identity.’

Well. It’s enough to just about break a person’s heart, isn’t it?

All these broken relationships. All this heartbreak.

Sigh.

It’s a darn good thing I can never really stay “down” for very long! Between personal chaos/unhappiness & global meltdowns of all kinds, a person really could go crazy pretty readily!?!?

Janet

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” – William Faulkner

As I write this, it’s four days away from September 11, 2011 – 10^th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City (& the Pentagon). It also marks 10 years of a “war on terror.”

On my walk this morning the title of this post came into my head. Ground: zero.

As wise Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön reminds us in her wonderful books, we humans are always trying (unsuccessfully!) to get solid ground beneath us. We think if we just get a new partner, or a new job, or get rich, or thin, or super-organized, or a divorce, or become famous, get that book published, retire, buy a house – whatever – then, finally,  “everything will be alright.”

Such slow learners!!

There is no solid ground – there never will be! As I suspect I’ve said elsewhere, this can either make us crazy – or set us free!

Once we know that all those things we chase will never bring us some kind of magical permanent peace or satisfaction – & that the ground, & our lives, may literally shake & open up beneath us at any moment, we are freed to live in this moment…yes, this one that we are always somehow trying to run away from to that…experience, or relationship, or success, or task or … whatever.

So. No ground. And who would know that better than the people who lost loved ones at Ground Zero in New York City, ten years ago now?

In Taking the Leap – Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears, Pema Chödrön says, “How we relate moment by moment to what is happening on the spot is all there really is. We give up all hope of fruition and in the process we just keep learning what it means to appreciate being right here.”

Right here, right now. Ground: zero.

Janet

P.S. As for the “war on terror,” well duh…have we still not learned that he who lives by the sword will die by the sword? (Did I already mention that we human beings are awfully slow learners??)

‘Quote of the day’ w. this post: “It seems we all have the tendency to move away from the present moment. It’s as if this habit is built into our DNA.” – Pema Chödrön

(PE = Planet Earth)

I’ve been reading the marvellous John W. Gofman book Irrevy: An Irreverent, Illustrated View of Nuclear Power (published in 1979 by the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility).

John W. Gofman “(September 21, 1918 – August 15, 2007) was an American scientist and advocate. He was Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at University of California at Berkeley. Some of his early work was on the Manhattan Project” (this snippet from Wikipedia). Later on, Gofman did tons of good stuff, including turning totally away from nuclear energy & advocating passionately against it.

Fascinating book! Illuminating, clever, witty – a must-read for many reasons! (It’s probably “out of print” now, but I’ve managed to get my local small bookseller dude to get me 3 copies for a very reasonable price. Amazing what local small bookseller folks can do for you!!)

The book’s Chapter 4 is called “The Catch-22 Society: Some Thoughts on ‘Civil Disobedience’ and ‘Uncivil Obedience.’”

He starts it off with the wonderful (former slave) Frederick Douglass quotation from August 1857:

“Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. This struggle may be a moral one; it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical. But it must be a struggle.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” – Frederick Douglass

Hooey.

Gofman then goes on to paraphrase Douglass:

“There are two fundamental groups in society, the screwers and the screwees. The screwers have all the apparatus of power, the sycophantic henchmen who do their bidding, and they have unflinching devotion to the preservation of their privileges at the expense of the screwees. Further, the screwers have enormous difficulty understanding why the screwees should ever raise any questions about the super-wonderful system which they have in place.

Generally speaking, screwees have never particularly enjoyed being overtly known as such. Therefore, a subterfuge is essential. The subterfuge which has emerged is the myth that the screwees are the ones who are really running the show, and that they do so through a democratic government. The ostensible purpose of government is to protect the rights and security of its citizens. This is done through a system of laws, drafted by hordes of those individuals we call lawyers, such laws being written as to defy comprehension by virtually anyone, but never written so as to be neutral in any conflict between the screwers and the screwees.

There is not necessarily any desire to be evil on the part of the screwers. All they want is an absolute guarantee that they can preserve and extend their privilege at the expense of the screwees. Stated otherwise, they wish to acquire an ever-increasing share of all the means of production and resources of the Earth, so that they can still further increase that share. And to these ends, we have the so-called “economy,” which through ceaseless churning, steadily allows those with power and privilege to increase both. Thus the top 19% of families owns about 76% of all the privately held wealth in the USA, while the bottom 25% has no assets at all (Dr. L.C. Thurow, M.I.T. Department of Economics). The concentration of wealth and power is such that recent estimates are that the top 5% of the American population owns more assets than does the bottom 81% combined (also Thurow).

What is manufactured in this “economy” is really quite irrelevant to the screwer-class. The only criterion is that what is manufactured be saleable at a profit. Hula hoops, arms, oil, cars, cigarettes, nuclear power plants, food, all are viewed through only one lens – can they be sold at a profit. Better still are those products which, through built-in obsolescence, can insure that the purchaser becomes locked into the system of dependence. Best of all are those products which become absolute necessities in the contemporary way of life, and which cannot possibly be made by the screwee himself. Thus, for example, nuclear power plants to create electricity are lovely, whereas small solar systems are a disaster – from the point of view of the screwers.” – John W. Gofman, in Irrevy: An Irreverent, Illustrated View of Nuclear Power.

Sobering take on things, hmmm?

For sure, it sounds 100% bang on to me.

Gofman is brilliant, funny, &, as the book title suggests, very irreverent.

Here’s what he says about when we finally “get” that we are screwees, & what we can do about it:

“But let someone raise the issue that pollution of the environment, poisoning of people, poisoning of other life forms, should be prevented and that the responsibility for such prevention be borne by the screwers, and all hell breaks loose. Or if someone suggests that a particular profitable activity should ever cease entirely because it cannot be made safe, we are in for a battle royal. They tell you that Kepone and dioxin put bread on your table.

Ostensibly, those who are concerned have a marvelous recourse – namely the government of, for, and by the people, which will (of course) be ever watchful of the interests of the people. The Congress will pass the laws necessary, the Executive Branch will set up administrative agencies to flesh out the programs and regulatory agencies to insure that the public is protected from depradations. If the laws don’t seem to be achieving the goals dreamed of by the screwees, they can turn Tweedle-dum out of office and elect Tweedle-dee. When Tweedle-dee turns out to be a carbon copy of Tweedle-dum, then there is always the privilege of electing Tweedle-dum’s cloned brother.” (John W. Gofman in Irrevy: An Irreverent, Illustrated View of Nuclear Power, on page 116).(1)

This made me laugh out loud. So did what he said (on page 126) about the coconut heads at the Atomic Energy Commission (to do with the so-called “safety” of eating coconuts from Bikini Island, where nuclear testing had taken place. Seems like the coconut heads are all over the place!! We have our fair share here in Canada too, for sure!)

Well, I could go on & on here, extolling the virtues of this wonderful book, & odds are good I’ll talk about it some more, maybe soon.

But for now, just mostly wanted to pass on the screwers & screwee description.

We might as well have a realistic grasp on how things work on Planet Earth, don’t you think?

I’m not saying it’s nice, or fun – for sure, it’s … bracing…

Janet

P.S. John Gofman curriculum vitae here. Interview w. Gofman here

P.P.S. The book is chockfull of brilliant cartoons, btw. Lots of good laughs! Some more quotes here

P.P.P.S. Some of my own Tweedle wisdom here

P.S. # 4: Watch Canadian politician Tommy Douglas on YouTube, talking about “Mouseland.” Same message as the Tweedledum & Tweedledee. Must-see!

‘Quote of the day’ with this post: “No degree of prosperity could justify the accumulation of large amounts of highly toxic substances which nobody knows how to make “safe” and which remain an incalculable danger to the whole of creation for historical or even geological ages. To do such a thing is a transgression against life itself, a transgression infinitely more serious than any crime ever perpetrated by man. The idea that a civilisation could sustain itself on the basis of such a transgression is an ethical, spiritual, and metaphysical monstrosity. It means conducting the economic affairs of man as if people really did not matter at all.” – E.F. Schumacher, 1911-1977

** Lots of other great nuke-related quotes here

Yesterday’s post was about “screwers & screwees,” with lengthy explanation from the brilliant John W. Gofman book “Irrevy” – An Irreverent, Illustrated View of Nuclear Power (published in 1979 by the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility) as to how things really function on our planet.

As I said, it ain’t a pretty picture – but it’s … bracing! (Elizabeth Cady Stanton said “Truth is the only safe ground to stand on,” & I’m kinda with her on that.)

A few more gems from the book:

“We are treated to a remarkable spectacle. If we don’t like what is being done in our name and with our dollars, we can change things through law, by electing Tweedle-dee instead of Tweedle-dum. If we object to the activities of the Atomic Energy Commission or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, we have the fabulous privilege of “intervening” in license-hearings. Citizens are expected somehow to hire lawyers in such processes, while their tax dollars go to support an army of lawyers at the beck and call of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. There has not existed the slightest shred of meaningful evidence that the entire intervention process in nuclear energy is anything more than the most callous of charades and frauds. Short of direct proof that a nuclear reactor is sitting on Mount Vesuvius at the height of its eruption, there is little doubt that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will approve the site. Probably some of the Commissioners would suggest coming back next week … maybe the volcano will quiet down.” <page 125>

(I can say with confidence that this is equally true of nuclear hearings here in Canada, btw. Brilliant & determined activists (some of them scientists themselves) spend many hours doing research & writing wildly intelligent “interventions” for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). Almost 80 such submissions were made last Fall in Ottawa on the issue of the preposterous Bruce Power proposal to ship radioactive steam generators through the Great Lakes & Atlantic Ocean & Baltic & North Seas to Sweden for “recycling” – yet the CNSC in its infinite wisdom simply ignored all this well-informed testimony & gave its OK to the shipment! (Lots of postings about this issue here on this blog.) Darlington hearings no different (postings here). You can beat your head bloody trying to defeat nuclear proposals, but almost invariably, no one in a position of power is really listening).

More Gofman:

On air shipments of plutonium-oxide into New York City (yikes!?) & how a health physicist for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) argued that the odds were good that a crash would not kill everyone in NYC (good of him, wasn’t it??). Congress wound up stopping the practice (this was back when Gerald Ford was President). Gofman comment: “Occasionally, even Congress comes to life if the idiocy of a situation is sufficient.” <page 46> Ahem.