As a change of pace, here’s something SERIOUS to get your knickers in a twist about…
August 22, 2011
The New York Times reports today that “Broad areas around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could soon be delcared uninhabitable, perhaps for decades…”
On his Progressive Alaksa blog, Phil Munger quotes a Japanese official as saying that the radiation released at Fukushima equals that of “more than 29 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs.”
Being as eternally optimistic as he is, Phil also cites folks who say that sunflowers fight the effects of radiation.
I hope he and they are right. My understanding of radiation poisoning is that nothing stops it from killing those exposed.
I learned a bit about this in the 1980s when, with the help of my friend Boyd Norton–a nuclear physicist, who quit the field in order to become a wilderness photographer, and someone I first met on a hike through the Brooks Range in Alaska in 1976 (see GOING TO EXTREMES)–I spent more than six months researching life at Los Alamos during the building of the first atomic bomb.
In the end, as with the OJ Simpson trial, and with a cruise around the world I took in 2005, I decided not to proceed with the book I’d envisioned.
But, as always, I learned a lot.
Boyd was particularly fascinated by the story of Dr. Louis Slotin, a physicist and chemist who helped build the first atomic bomb.
In 1946, while, as he called it, “tickling the tail of the dragon,” Slotin accidentally dropped a piece of beryllium on to a hunk of plutonium, thereby triggering a burst of radiation that he took head on at close range.
It was worse than a gunshot
He died of radiation poisoning nine agonizing days after the accident.
During my research, I talked to both Slotin’s brother, in Winnipeg, and his sister, in New London, Connecticut.
Slotin was playing Russian Roulette with radioactivity, and he lost.
But he, at least, knew what he was doing, and he was doing it not for kicks, but to advance the cause of science. He made a conscious decision to sign on to the Los Alamos project, and then to perform hazardous experiments.
The people of Fukushima were not given a choice.
Nor were the rest of us, who might be adversely affected (i.e. “killed”) over time, as radiation from the Fukushima disaster infects the atmosphere.
I’m all for the planting of sunflowers. Even if they don’t soak up radiation, they sure are pretty.
But in thinking about Fukushima–and Chernobyl and Three Mile Island before it–I’m reminded of the Pete Seeger song from the 1950’s: “Where Have All The Flowers Gone”:
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
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86 Responses to “As a change of pace, here’s something SERIOUS to get your knickers in a twist about…”
who cares, Joe? This isn’t ALL ABOUT your book, so why should we care?
Nice try to deflect from your crapping on the bloggers and your fans.
Aiming for witty?
Oops… comment meant for sleuth.
And yet the mainstream media has erected a spiral of silence around this as well. WE are the ones at risk from the STUPIDITY and CARELESSNESS of the people who own those plants (all around the world) and the governments covering for them. And the media quietly sweeps it all under the rug. It is our RIGHT to know the truth, no matter how bad it is.
What I don’t get is that the super rich are soiling the nest that they have to live in right along with the rest of us. Are they so stupid that they think they can run from their disasters? Many of the nuclear plants in the US are the same design as those that melted down in Japan, and are just as old and decayed. And have had their contracts extended.
Little seems to make sense anymore, when WILL they ever learn? BTW, that was one of my first protest songs. I liked the PP&M version.
I try…
And the “silly bloggers” have been on this for months.
Nice try to be relevant, Joe. Months late and pennies short.
Go back to flogging your book.
BTW, how many pre-orders have been canceled since your rants the last couple of days?
This is a serious topic. I have been following Vermont Yankee’s request for a 20-year extension of its license which expires in March of 2012. The state has decided not to grant the extension. The commercial enterprise which owns the plant is SUING the state of Vermont in order to be allowed NOT to de-commission and to continue operating the aging plant, which gets an unconscionable amount of free water from the CT river and which has been subject to radiation leaks.
It will come down to a states-rights issues, and the state is not in a strong position. The federal NRC, apparently, supports the plant and says that it is ok for another 20 years (what are they GOING to say???, that it’s not?). Federal law says that states can restrict nuclear business licensing, but not for “safety” issues, as far as I understand the situation…
Pretty crazy that a hairdresser or nail salon is more subject to state regulation than a nuclear plant…
Decommissioning MUST HAPPEN NOW, because there will be no energy, funds or capacity for it in the future.
Good to see you back Mr. McG. Hope you had a perfectly lovely Sunday!!! MIne was wonderful.
How amusing was it for you to read the comments from today:) Even when replying to a comment by twisting negative words just a bit to make it a positive…………….still see a dog chasin’ it’s tail:)
Thank you for this post on the radiation leaking into our world. I posted a comment yesterday about many things going on that have nothing to do with sp and was gently smacked:)
I will call your “where have all the flowers gone” and raise you:
“Ring around the rosey
Pocket full o’posey
Ashes to ashes
We all fall down.”
peace to you and yours.
I will see your song and raise it with mine:)………..I don’t believe “call” was the correct term?
Joe, I absolutely loved your Going to Extremes, and found the Brooks Range chapter to be the best part of all. Do you happen to know if Boyd Norton ever compiled the photos he took during your trek into a book? I’m very curious to get a peek at the hidden meadow you all found. Thanks!
Apparently Sleuth doesn’t care about this important issue. Sleuth is mainly interested in a pathetic attempt to create a fictitious grievance. Poor Sleuth, ya got your panties wedged up in a big ole bunch and it’s about time you pull them out! You’ve lost focus on the things that are important in life!
p.s. I am not sure if I understand correctly so forgive me if I am misunderstanding but, am I to believe you go through the comments and actually don’t post some of them? If that is indeed the case…………I shudder to think what the unpublished comments are like compared to many of the ones that I read on this blog the last few days.
Thanks so much for taking the time to sort through all of the many words we write here.
You ROCK!!!!
Some of us now must sleep so …………..
“Once there was a way, to get back homeward.
Once there was a way, to get back home.
Sleep pretty darling, do not cry.
And I will sing a lullaby.
Golden Slumbers fill your eyes.
Smiles awake you when you rise….”
the beatles
I’ll go all in on a song
The eastern world it is explodin’,
violence flarin’, bullets loadin’,
you’re old enough to kill but not for votin’,
you don’t believe in war, what’s that gun you’re totin’,
and even the Jordan river has bodies floatin’,
but you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.
I truly wish I was or am, as Joe puts it above, “eternally optimistic.” About our blooming nuclear legacy, about how much we pretend to know about science, when we merely cherry pick the most useful for the immediate present and for our material benefit. About what Sarah Palin’s continuing ominous presence long after her expiration date passed means. About the future of my home town of 26 years, Wasilla.
Like Joe, I’m hopelessly hopeful, though. Mostly because we worry about kids and grand-kids. Perhaps when people are as concerned about 90 generations of their grand-kids as they are about the next 90 days of their stock portfolios, we’ll be getting somewhere.
My concerns about Palin’s shortsighted views of science were part of what got me intrigued about her in the first place, 15 years ago. Watching her views on how long people have been here have helped inform me of how such superstitious beliefs as hers are dangerous to humanity’s future.
Joe didn’t bring this up because he’s trying to change the subject. It is probably more likely that his seeing the comments here devolve rather than evolve recently has gotten him to take a step back from a project that has been the center of his attention for so long, and to ponder what he’s learned over the past couple of years or so, as he wondered and wrote about Palin’s significance, in some new light.
Sleuth,
I’m not buying the book but I do want to read it. I’m glad a notable author has written about Sarah Palin because I’m hoping Joe’s book will add impetus to her downward trajectory. Even non-readers will be exposed to what he has to say if they see him on television.
I’ll get Joe’s book from the library or borrow it from someone. It’s not because of his condescending attitude, although chastising a congenial commenter for using the cliche “Say it ain’t so, Joe,” was unkind. I just don’t expect the book to be a keeper. I have overloaded bookcases in every room in my house. (I’m a retired English lit teacher.) I have to be very selective with my book purchases, or my house will start to look like those on A&E’s Hoarders.
Leah Burton’s latest, coming out September 4, will be a keeper for sure. I didn’t buy Theopalinism, and used copies are now costly, so I learned a lesson there. Dominionism is a threat to the country, and I want to know more about it. I think Joe devotes some of The Rogue to that topic as well.
When you call, everybody has to lay their cards down to see who wins.
I like your playful, upbeat way with words and your use of verse and song this weekend, incidentally. You helped lift the mood, countering both Joe’s crankiness and commenters’ hurt feelings. Wish I had had you in some of my classes back in the day.
What alternatives are there for Japan? Perhaps coal from Alaska?
Will sunflowers clean the waters, too?
Fukushima radioactive seawater plume spreading across the Pacific Ocean.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKJRF9GYNSU&feature=share
The only alternative is for people to stop using so much power, and dial down on population growth.
We simply cannot sustain the level of world population (coming on 7B this fall) and the level of activity we engage in on this planet. Of course, the west will have to lead in this since it is the west that has become the icon for the most materialistic lifestyles and heaviest users of energy on our earth. I don’t blame Japan in this since Japan has been under the influence of the US for 65 yrs now. and should be seen as an example of the failure of that influence.
Until we realize that, and can adjust ourselves to alternatives, including ratcheting down our overall consumption, we are sure to be doomed.
The news on Japan is very scary for the people there as well as the rest of the world for obvious reasons. How anyone can turn away from this and not want to do something about this problem is impossible to believe, yet what can the average person do?
The radiation from Japan has moved around the earth. Water samples taken here in USA have higher levels of radiation.
BP has spilled more oil in waters outside AK. Another spill in the states recently.
The big energy business have had their way and used their resources to promote their welfare but the health of the people & planet suffer. We fall under the spell of marketing and voila, every other car is a huge gas guzzler and not necessary, but we continue to do what’s not in our best interest.
Being part of the solution is important and doable even if it’s only to use my comment to help, not hinder, the process by a little bit!
I have always thought that nuclear power was extremely dangerous because no one knew what to do with the waste. Burying nuclear waste under remote mountains seems too much like burying your head in the sand to avoid a problem. The problem won’t go away; it will only get worse.
And then, the disaster in Japan, that goes on and on. We have to work at ending our use of nuclear energy. It is just not worth the risks. Germany has decided to close its nuclear plants as a result of Fukushima; a sound decision to my mind.
And this doesn’t get “my knickers in a twist,” but it does sadden me and give me additional worry about the fragile state of our small planet.
When I was a 5th grader, back in 1960, we had an entire unit in science on conservation. I remember going home and talking about conserving water and energy and not being taken seriously by my mom. There were people (mostly Democrats) who kept it going, but one of my strongest memories of the Obama campaign was when he advocated keeping one’s tires inflated, which does indeed save gas. He was lambasted by the right, who evidently plan to use up this planet and get to the end times that much sooner. Their dominion over the earth does not include maintaining it for anyone else…use it up, now.
It is so nice to know that you are just like the rest of us, Joe???. I have to say that I came here on the advice of Gryphen over at IM and have enjoyed your posts, look forward to reading your book and enjoying, hopefully, the knocks you claim it will take away from a person who has very seriously hurt our country. However, the last couple of days have been the most entertaining. The blogging world has fascinated me from the start and the dynamic of grown adults acting like playground bullies, as sad as it is for me to admit, is rather entertaining. I am so sorry to see that this blog has evolved, like so many others, to a negative stage and having a hard time pulling out. I would have hoped that you could have taken your own advice, to just get along, but, the wording you choose for this title just stokes the fire further. I have to wonder if you are not doing this on purpose to create more excitement. I don’t mean to attack you personally, but this is same behavior that SP displays and you personally condemn. If this is just a little experiment on your part to better understand this dynamic for another book or other research, HIGH FIVE. Very clever. I feel like being positive today, so I am going to go with that explanation and look forward to your scientific findings. You just don’t strike me as the type to be so thin-skinned. BTW, I post this with respect and only truly trying to understand………
Well said Phil. I thought many of Palin’s views had to do with lining her pockets with Koch Industries dollars. I like the idea of the sunflowers…they demonstrate hope even if futile.
Joe,
I applaud your post on Fukushima and the effect of nuclear radiation. Back in the early 90’s, I was an activist for Greenpeace (yes that makes me middle age now – sigh!) where like-minded individuals fought, and continue to fight the use of nuclear energy. It is an uphill battle.
One only has to do a Google search on nuclear power plants to discover the enormous lobbying and organizations that support the use of power plants. As of August 2011, there are over 60 reactors under construction in 14 countries, with over 400 ACTIVE nuclear power plants worldwide. According to the ICJT, these nuclear power plants produce only 17% of the world’s electricity.
Many consumers don’t realize that the waste produced by nuclear power plants is active and dangerous for thousands of years – yes – thousands of years! The containers that hold this waste will eventually corrode its containers and everyone’s health is compromised. I think the quote about the areas around Fukushima as being uninhabitable for “decades” is significantly underestimated.
If any of your readers are interested in pursuing this thread, a good place to start is a synopsis of the anti-nuclear movement page on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement.
Joe, good work – keep the conversation going…
It is a very depressing issue & the saddest part is after the horrific disaster the US worried about it for a month & did absolutely nothing about all the nuclear power plants in the US. The hope would be that a lesson would be learned from Japan, but as Pete Seeger (still alive & kicking in upstate NY) said we never learn. Moving along now before another Lord of the Flies incident breaks out.
Quick question Sarah, I mean sleuth: Where’s Trig’s birth certificate?
I love your sense of humor. Lord of the flies incident. . .lol. Thanks, I needed that!
eyeroll.
If you don’t care for the blogger, his blog post or the topic, you should not be here leaving comments like a troll.
Have we not learned about the dangers of uncivil discourse? Let’s stay on topic and debate things calmly and rationally like grown-ups . Sometimes the posters on these blogs scare me.
A song about the Black Death is a mood lifter?
Yes, Phil we should all be worried about ill-informed and shortsighted politicians like Palin. And coverups abound. For example, Three Mile Island was much worse than reported (see Harvey Wasserman and others).
http://www.alternet.org/health/134174
My father was a physicist and I was raised with the knowledge that there is no “safe” amount of radiation in that the variables are too many when it comes to the delicate structures of living cells meeting radioactive particles. The “safe amount of radiation exposure” is a lie promulgated by the nuclear industry and their political shills, who are either woefully ignorant of nuclear science or criminally negligent, or both.
The Japanese were using mox fuel in some reactors at Fukishima. That will make the area unihabitable for much more than decades since the half life of plutonium-239 is 24,100 years.
Also a concern is the use of depleted uranium (U238) in weapons used in Iraq and the Balkans. Evidence is that the U238 (half life 4.5 billion years) spiked birth defects and cancer rates in those areas and is linked to the Gulf War Syndrome.
Finally, there is no safe way to dispose of nuclear waste. We need to decommission nuclear reactors now and stop the craziness before it gets worse.
Remember the Rushbo Right and their plans for Earth Day?
Driving around in circles to burn as much gas as humanly possible…
The mind boggles at the stupidity, but it’s not just stupidity, it’s a mean, nasty, destructive stupidity. A stupidity that corrodes the soul.
I know you set up your blog to sell your book, but I also think that the comments posted on your blog, especially the negative ones, helped you develop your strategy in how to deal with these very same questions that you know know will be asked of you on your book tours. You got a lot of information from the folks who bothered to post their comments. That’s ok, I understand it is simply marketing skills. However, your post on treating the Palins with civility, i.e., not asking those questions that remain curiously couched between the lines…..and your dumping negative responses really showed the truth behind your motives. I feel used.
The plague took place so long ago, the verses have lost their morbid association. Today it’s just a simple children’s chant.
Over the weekend gypsyrose reminded us of lyrics from Van Morrison and others, some of whom are apparently high on Joe’s list. Those posts seemed to soothe his ire a bit.
In Europe and America, there’s a growing feeling of hysteria
Conditioned to respond to all the threats
In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets
Mr. Krushchev said we will bury you
I don’t subscribe to this point of view
It would be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians love their children too
How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer’s deadly toy
There is no monopoly in common sense
On either side of the political fence
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too
There is no historical precedent
To put the words in the mouth of the President
There’s no such thing as a winnable war
It’s a lie we don’t believe anymore
Mr. Reagan says we will protect you
I don’t subscribe to this point of view
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too
We share the same biology
Regardless of ideology
What might save us, me, and you
Is if the Russians love their children too
Good question.
Japan’s energy source is highly damaged. That we can agree on. How will they fill that loss of energy? Coal from Alaska could fill some of the void.
I do ponder the loss of thier ocean food source created by the loss of thier energy source.
Considering that side of the Pacific Ocean is now dispersing life forms that are radiating.
Methinks it is a food and fuel diaster for Japan.
Just like rural Alaska a few years ago, where folks were deciding basically what counts today? ==>>Food or Fuel.
Sleuth its no use…. you are talking to ONE person with about Five or more names.
I’ll raise your eyeroll.
oops the html didnt allow my raise.
(deep sigh)
Be aware. Be involved. Be hopeful.
When loss is something that is experienced way too much, one may learn to deal with life by being hopeful, being happy, being optimistic every single minute you can be. Choose joy. Choose love. There will be times when the dark will be so thick that one can only rely upon the memory of light at the end of the tunnel. Those times can’t be controlled…………..they are what they are. For every other single second of breath, choose light.
Light and sassy:)
Hope.
Oh damn, you finally figured it out. It’s just you and me the all internet encompassing Palin troll on all the blogs you frequent.
Too much credit given to my voice…………am sure I did nothing at all except to type words together into a string of thoughts and lyrics written by others.
If ire was indeed felt by anyone on this blog, I am sure I did nothing to assuage it.
I thank ye though for your words:)
peaceful
I worked for years with the late nuclear activist, James L. Acord. He predicted the Fukushima reactors would probably be destroyed by earthquake and tsunami, back when they were being built. He spent 25 years prodding the nuclear industry about waste, and on the idiocy of reactor designs that keep spent fuels suspended above reactor cores.
Stop it. Don’t ever use that word ever again.
A troll is a Norwegian mythical creature similar to Shrek (although Shrek appears to be Scottish), common in fairy tales. A troll lived under the bridge in Billy Goats’ Gruff.
“Look at them, troll mother said. Look at my sons! You won’t find more beautiful trolls on this side of the moon.”
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/John_Bauer_1915.jpg
Use your Inside Voice and Big Girl language. If you don’t agree with a comment, say why, how the opinion varies from your own, what YOU think about it.
If you don’t LIKE a commentor, say nothing. All of us are anonymous. We don’t know each other. We might be in the office next door and never know it. Don’t make it personal. It’s an illusion.
You worked with him doing what, Philip?
Boyd Norton’s Alaska book, which contains his own splendid writing about our Brooks Range hike, as well as his superlative photos, has been out of print for many years. You may be able to order a used copy through amazon. See:
http://www.amazon.com/Alaska-wilderness-frontier-Boyd-Norton/dp/0883491354/ref=sr_1_19?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314031691&sr=1-19
–Joe
p.s. Boyd’s forthcoming book on the Serengeti will, I think, be widely recognized as his masterpiece.
http://www.amazon.com/Serengeti-Eternal-Beginning-Boyd-Norton/dp/1555915930/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314031984&sr=1-4
Ah. So that’s how it’s done, then?
crystalwolf – try using that brain of yours. None of your group is good at picking out an actual troll (disrupter vs. someone with a different opinion) or identifying posters who you don’t recognize. It’s the easy, snide thing to say and frankly, I’m tired of of it after almost three years of you doing it. It makes you look silly and petty, and underneath that childish front I am pretty sure you want to be taken seriously. It’s not that hard. Talk to people in the comments – you might find it enlightening. Your attitude around people not in your click is about the closest thing I’ve seen to acting out like a Sarah Palin. She never learns with that attitude, and the same goes with anyone else carrying that sack of rocks on their back.
Also, too and therefore – the answer to your question to me in a previous thread – it’s the “guessing” and assuming that keeps you from being a serious poster since you do it on purpose to create tension.
or that we are all too human.
or that we all die.
or that we have our own version of the black plague today.
or a child’s rhyme………………
Well sure, but you (I) knew that since we are the same person. I (you) have a school bus sized main frame computer and 1423 screen names with which to confuse Crystal. However she’s finally figured me (us) out. Time for plan “B”,
Also too, wasn’t this tricky of me (us) to carry on a pseudo conversation between ourselves (myself)?
Oh crap. I’ve lost my place. Now I don’t know if I’m (A) or (B). Do I have to review all the way from the beginning, or can I just pick one and go from there? Can I just be (C) from now on? What? Really? Oh stop. Quit answering me, dammit, you’re just making it worse.
Oh jeez, I’m sorry, but I have no recall of what I did when I was (B). But I woke up wearing different clothes and had a new car in the driveway.
🙂
One third of the U.S. population lives within striking distance of these ten decaying nuke plants. They’re just like the Fukushima reactors in that they store 1000’s of spent fuel rods above the active reactors. Now down in Texas the PWTB are going to license two more of these monsters and take a guess who is contracted to build them. TEPCO !!! Yes, the GE designed reactor will be built by Japan for U.S. OK trolls, back to the hijack…
Did you pick that out, by the way? Why didn’t you get us a big truck?
o/t
Bloggers, for whatever the reason to start and manage a blog……..have created a space for expression by many who have not found their voice, many who have no place to use their voice, and those that have a voice that no one wants to hear. Anonymously……………………..to some degree………..this is the internet after all.
perhaps, as the sp followers see her as the answer to all their woes, the “anti palins” see her as the reason for all their woes. neither is correct ………………or both are correct.
perhaps the focus on an sp is easier than to focus on the spread of radiation, unemployment, starvation, genocide, homelessness, horror, destruction, chaos……………………………..
joe mcg, perhaps your book provides a gentle whisper of hope that some of the wrongs can be righted and that we are not all just blowin’ in the wind………
peace up
Good work, Phil, and no one listened.
The sorrow among physicists was palpable at Los Alamos as they saw the immense power unleashed would be in the hands politicians and corporatists with little understanding or care about the dangers of nuclear energy that could cause deleterious mutations in gene pool, and also destroy most life on the planet in a flash. Now many reactors are aged and DU weapons and nuclear waste proliferate
I pray the horrors of Fukishima and the new statistics available from scientists and doctors (outside the UN’s whitewash) about Chernobyl’s widespread radiation and its horrific effect on health and lives, and about Depleted Uranium related illnesses and birth defects in Iraq, the Balkans, and among Gulf War veterans, will become more widely known.
My hope is that out of the disaster and suffering of Fukishima will come an unstoppable movement away from nuclear weapons and energy. That would be a beautiful flower growing from sorrow and decay.
When the meltdown in Japan was beginning, I told two young co-workers that they could expect one thing to remain the same. All governments lie about the damage done. The U.S. Government lied, the government of the U.S.S.R. lied, and now government officials in Japan have been telling outright lies.
It is sad that the Republicans and the Reagan administration voted out the tax credits for solar and wind that the Carter Administration had instituted. Those technologies would be bearing fruit by now.
The Republicans in Congress are still pushing nuclear, oil, gas and coal because that is what their corporate masters have bought and paid for.
On another matter, I am now glad that you are shutting down the comments Joe. Ever since you announced you were shutting down the comments, the comments changed and not for the better. Andrew Sullivan was correct in not allowing comments on his blog.
Actually, “Golden Slumbers” was written by Thomas Dekker in 1603. It was in a book called “The Pleasant Comodie of Patient Grissill.” The words are slightly different. I live a good part of my life in the 17th Century, and I was gobsmacked when I found this!
Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise.
Sleep, pretty wantons; do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby.
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
Care is heavy, therefore sleep you;
You are care, and care must keep you.
Sleep, pretty wantons; do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby;
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.
Seems Paul McCartney’s sister was studying Dekker and left the poem on the piano. The rest is History!
PEACE, All.
martha UYS attacking others seem to be YOUR personal problem.
Its very amusing to see one person GB, stubbornandgleefulanonymous,marthauys talking to themselves. To bad this isn’t disqus and we could see it for all its FAKENESS.
Who is MY GROUP Cindee? Tell me who?
Looks like you decided not to use that brain of yours, but stay awash with sarcasm and deflection instead.
Jude,
You might be able to get “theopalinism” from leah herself? She might have some copies. I have one and its really good. Email her on her blog and ask.
I have a question..how long have you and the person below you been commenting on this blog..seems you all of a sudden showed up, am I wrong? I’ve seen this happen on other blogs but most commenters are on to the newbees stirring the pot!
Lilli
I’ve been around the Palin blogs for 3 years, but if you’re one of the people dead set on defending this place like it’s yours I am most likely a troll in your eyes. I have no intention of fighting you if you are one of those people (like Crystal) but I will snark you to death. If you’re just a normal reader like I really am, I’m just an average goofball trying to have some fun and maybe make a couple of people laugh. (I am aka GBIllinois at Gryphen’s place if that helps you out.)
OMFG!!! You really do think everyone on the blog is one person!!!!!! I don’t think I need to say anothger word. . .
Longer than you lilli if you don’t recognize my name. However, that doesn’t matter one whit. If it does matter to you, then you best to stick to the places on the Internet which are completely safe and you know every single person you interact with.
Free thinkers don’t need to play it completely safe all the time, so who knows where I go sometimes to learn something. I really enjoyed deennaa’s comment of August 22, 2011 at 1:06 pm, quoted below not in its entirety. And yep, deennaa’s been around forever, too.
https://www.joemcginniss.net/maybe-sarah-could-reach-out-and-help-someone-close-to-home-steve-menard-hits-bottom-by-trashing-sitka-hotel-room/Joe%20McGinniss#comments
“Too much fuss being made re Mr. McG and the blog’s follower’s. Too much labeling of each other – Unless someone knows the other person up front and personal, the accusations are not factual nor, to me, believable. EVERYONE is more than just a paragraph of words. EVERYONE has opinions. One dimensional human’s are not the norm.
I hate the terms “left”, “right”, “anti” “bots”, “trolls”, etc, etc. People are more than LABELS. I don’t let anyone or anything change my thinking unless that thinking is off track or not factual – as far as facts may be there to prove or disprove. Many things that require evidence may or may not be revealed at points in time or not at all. That doesn’t mean we can or cannot deduce Truth’s. It certainly DOES mean that if we have beliefs, are aware of our world around us and even have compassion and empathy for that, we WILL have opinions. Opinions will be there even if we don’t care about anything around us.
If I despise palin, I refuse any label of “anti” or anything else someone dreams up. I have my reasons and as long as I am a societal member of this nation who has someone hoisted upon me who is so far from being kind, impartial, intelligent with objectivity, and race tolerant/religion tolerant – just for starters – I WILL protest verbally and in writing if these are my only options to refuse the unacceptable. I try to be fair and respectful. I don’t host a blog so if comments are allowed, I try to be aware of what the owner requires and follow that. I don’t like labels and name calling. I want to be more precise and describe in words that fit. I’ve tried to do that with sarah palin. Being an Alaskan and an Alaskan Native, she hasn’t given me any words that I could use to describe her nicely. She did that herself…
…This internet technology is so awesome. We still don’t know its dimensions. We are (some of us) are beginning to see its power. So far, I don’t think enough respect has been given to its awesomeness – and at the same time – its power to be destructive. If it has the power to stop a rabid and dangerous person like sarah palin from obtaining great power, then lets all get to the job at hand and keep it together for that particular purpose at hand. “
“The mind boggles at the stupidity, but it’s not just stupidity, it’s a mean, nasty, destructive stupidity. A stupidity that corrodes the soul.”
Very well said.
Excellent! I appreciate your response, and will check out the links. I see that the Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve came into official being shortly after your mid 1970’s scouting trip. Now confined to being an armchair traveler – at least when it comes to an Arctic hiking adventure complete with bears! – I get a lot of enjoyment out of Bill Hess’s blog. He’s a photographer and writer in Wasilla. Here, he has interesting stories about people and a wedding in Anaktuvuk Pass:
http://wasillaalaskaby300.squarespace.com/journal/category/anaktuvuk-pass
I wonder why, as a Southern California native, the Brooks Range somehow ‘speaks’ to me? Thanks for your help.
I recommend the updates on Fukushima and related matters at http://www.fairewinds.com/updates
A number of projects. I helped him move to Richland in the late 80s. We monitored radiation leaks in the Hanford Reach together. I helped put on the 1992 Save the Reactor series in Seattle with Jim an others. I helped him put together his package in 1998 that led to a number of grants and fellowships for Acord in Europe.
Some stuff we did I cannot write about. Ever.
I agree with you, the long term fall out from Fukushima is going to be a long term nightmare also. Who knows how it’s going to affect everyone there as well as everyone else down wind, so to speak, across the ocean. This is the sort of thing that can keep a person up late at night.
Wow, I was singing that song just a couple of days ago. Seemed so appropriate for the times we live in now.
Older_Wiser
You’re absolutely right. The only short term solution is using less electricity. To say we (or the Japanese or Germans or whoever) should shut down the nuke plants ignores the fact that nuclear power provides a large part of the electricity in any of those countries. If they were closed tomorrow what replaces that? Any plan will takes years to come to pass, whether it’s alternate energy tech. or coal/gas fired plants. Here where I live they have begun erecting wind turbines. In two years they have built approximately 550. the plan is for over 10,000. Do the math. At that rate it will take 35 years to get them all built. To build a new non-nuclear plant takes seven years after approval by the NRC. Conservation is the only answer.
Wasn’t talking about you above…take a chill pill.
I apologize for not understanding who you were referring to, since I ended up right below your comment! It’s still pertinent that whether it was me, or a “newbie”, that we don’t really know each other and should act accordingly without assumptions – but rather an open mind.
You’re thanking a poster for contributing to a riot? lol….after all the repeated “this is so amusing” comments, I must say, I found THAT amusing. Also, just so ya know….there are no “hurt feelings” being soothed. No one apologized, and folks who were insulted, and rightly so, simply left. Count me in the group of insulted posters. And so that we’re clear, I’m not an antipalinista or whatever you people call readers of Palin blogs these days. I’m lucid and reasonable, and in fact probably less believing of rumor or unproven ideas than most of you, including the author.
Fascinating. How intriguing…
It’s extremely difficult for them, the whole country is sitting on multiple tectonic plate fault lines just waiting to go off like land mines. Goodness knows which direction they will decide to go, so much was invested in the nuclear option. It will take years to rebuild.
Since the Japanese Current comes pretty much to my doorstep, I find this information very relevant. Thanks, Joe.
This is an unworthy gate-keeper adolescent question. By what superior right does any anonymous individual presume to give voice or validate opinion for anyone else?Since when is “seniority” a prerequisite for posting a comment on a blog? And in who’s judgement? Who are we reporting to? Who is tracking this? Who wants to know?
There’s all kinds of spying going on – data and usage tracking, workplace rules, marketing stuff, even something as benign as cookies is a data capturing application. There are many limitations to our personal privacy. What reason on God’s Green Earth do we have to invent informal rules and requirements that further restrict what we do in our free time and reduce quality of experience? Our hobbies and past times. Our recreational pursuits. Our personal interests. That we individually pay for.
This isn’t “free.” Joe pays for his blog on his end. I pay dearly for internet access. I am remote with limited service options. I buy my own computer equipment. I decide what programs are on it and what websites I visit. I owe _no one_ an explanation or require approval for what I do on my expensive computer time.
None of us REALLY know how long anyone has read a particular blog, nor do we know who posted and when. And that’s terrific! That’s as it should be! And who REALLY cares?
Internet access, personal schedules, commuting, household responsibilites, children, illness, travel, vacation time, remote work sites – any number of variables, all fluid – dictate how much time and how regularly we spend time on electives. You may have tons of free time just once a year and only on Christmas Vacation, whereas someone else is unemployed, staying at home supported by a spouse. How shockingly little and spiteful to evaluate an opinion as less worthy based on often a speaker comments. Where does that come from?!
There’s such a thing as “netiquette.” No, it’s not formal rules. It’s nothing more than a culture of common sense and courtesy. Nobody invented it. Nobody’s enforcing it. There’s no net police, thank god.
There are members-only forums. There are group subscriptions. There are formal established rules therein. Rules rightly created by owners, who have every right to. Yes, kids, owners OWN blogs. It absolutely is intellectual property and copyright-enforceable materiel. I don’t need YOUR permission if I implicitly have the owner’s.
Are we now gonna need little disclaimers that say “by posting a comment here, you agree to terms of convention and courtesy and not being an asshole, you agree you don’t get to set the terms of my readership”?
Consider this: the ONLY one here who is NOT anonymous is the blog owner. Fully accountable for every thing he writes. YOU all know who HE is, but he has no idea who you are!
You, ladies, are the children on the playground shoving my kid off the slide because he wasn’t there yesterday. YOU ARE BULLIES. This is the EXACT behavior that we work very hard to combat in our schools, while attempting to respect families’ personal culture, because it is damaging and harmful. Hurtful. Inappropriate. Angry-making. Creates a hostile environment for everyone, even those who aren’t engaging. Puts pressure on systems and distracts from agenda. People like me are obliged to sit through annual workplace “retreats” and “teambuilding” in-service, because of people like you who cannot comprehend that civility and inclusion IMPROVES everything and makes us all more effective. Oh yes, this might be all be comfortably anonymous on the internet, but it’s VERY personal.
YOU are the poorly-trained, mean-spirited teacher who won’t call on little Bobby because he’s “a newbie”. All the other kids have been there since kindergarten and established a pecking order.
YOU are the high school girls who dictate to meeker girls who allow them supreme authority for no particular reason.
How long have I been commenting on this blog? Reading writers’ blogs? Following Sarah Palin? What a presumptuous question! Even more stunning, is that you somehow believe that snotty challenge to be a legitimate means of revealing evidence of your own superiority.
I absolutely positively WILL NOT kowtow to bullies.
Wait. Yeah, I know. I sound just like Rebecca Mansour.
How ironic that today we had an earthquake on the east coast, and two outdated yet operating nuclear plants near the epicenter in Virginia were shut down and put on diesel power “With an abundance of caution”. They were built during the sixties and seventies with the thinking they’d be updated in twenty years with safer technology….. never happened!
When will we learn? When will we ever learn?
Why is it, when I plant sunflowers, they always decide to grace my neighbors with their cheery conutnences?
apparently, sleuth has been paying attention to this trainwreck LONG before her VP nomination.
Put your faith in someone who waited THIS long to string you all along with something that MIGHT be devastating, but since he’s an admitted best friend with Fox News’ Roger Ailes, I wouldn’t hold my breath for anything that will take her down.
But you all enjoy what Joe is keeping under wraps because it’s just “so explosive”.
It’s just opposition theory. He has nothing explosive that’s not out there already. And there’s stuf out there already more than he’ll have in his book.
Dream on.
and go ahead and keep calling me a troll.
Someone needs to call out the “professional journalist” who is just a bully.
there is no birth certificate. Ask Sarah.
But no one called you a troll…