FUKUSHIMA ME

This may sound terribly insensitive, but these days when I'm wandering around the house, fixing food, exercising, thinking about my novel and feeling guilty about having so much fun, if I stub my toe, the swear word that comes to my lips is "Fukushima."

As in, "Damn that hurts. Fukushima!"

I say it several times a day, sometimes as a joke. I don't know what to make of the news. Maybe nukes are bad, maybe they are good. Like that old rhyme:

There was a little girl 
who had a little curl 
in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,
she was very, very good.
When she was bad,
she was horrid.

Perhaps nuclear energy is like that. As long as it doesn't blow up and fry our asses, it's great.

One commentator described a nuclear energy plant as like having a dragon in a cage. As long as the dragon stays in the cage, and keeps the tread-wheel turning, it's fine. But if it gets out, there can be hell to pay.

So now we have wildly mixed metaphors.

Fukushima.

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

NUKES IN JAPAN

These leaking and exploding nuclear power plants in Japan are scary. I wonder if we are doing the right thing building more of them here and in Europe.

Of course, Japan is on a slip-fault zone, or whatever it is called, and it is an island nation, so it is more vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis. Still, that is some spooky stuff, a warning to all of us. I think we should help, as a nation, as much as we can. Send in the Navy.

It seems that every form of energy is either dangerous or inconsequential. Can we really build enough solar and wind farms to power our cities? I think that three-fourths of our electricity in this country is supplied by coal, which loads up the greenhouse gases. And we use so much oil and gasoline. The Prius and other "green" cars just don't seem like enough. 

Maybe every little bit helps, but it all seems inadequate to me. I think we humans need a massive change in lifestyle, world-wide. Otherwise, cough-cough, we are going to need a new planet. And I don't see another one handy.

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle