INTERESTING TIMES

The uglification of which I speak didn't exactly start with Ailes (Fox), but he certainly boosted it. One of the hats that I wear is at a natural products pharmacy; we dispense herbs and supplements and a few hormonal products. I spend some time sitting behind the counter simply helping the next person who comes to the window. Most people are decent, kind, and even patient. But lately I've noticed a trend. The proportion of cranky, mean and abusive people is increasing.

Today it was a lady by the name of Hammer. What's in a name, I ask? Did your name make you into a prosecutor in the pharmacy line? How many hammering questions does one have to tolerate before you are satisfied? Is there an inkling of generosity in you? A morsel of patience? An ounce of kindness? I saw none. I experienced questions hammering in faster than they could be answered, demands stacked up while I was trying to answer the questions, topped with an insult. Ms Hammer is just the most recent experience of this sort. There was one yesterday, and the day before more than one. Too bad it's nice people who get cancer and not the bitches.

This is Oregon. People in general are nice here. But not the raving maniac that stabbed two men to death the other day trying to get to some young women who were a different color than him. This disease of condemnation and hatred is seeping deeper and deeper into our culture, and leaking out in more settings all the time. I do not know how to fix it. I don't believe in phony niceness, but I also don't believe in punishing people just because you can. I am sensitive and not cut out to tolerate verbal abuse in the course of my work. I try to contain my anguish until I am in private. Then I weep. I try to be kind to the people that I meet. And I may have to find a way to not serve the public any more.

In Japan they have a name for it. Hikikomori. It's a sociological phenomenon in which people simply stop participating in society. If society is ugly, then decent people will not show up. If decent people do not show up, society will uglify even more. If we all retreat into our tiny little bubbles even more than we already have, the fractures in our supposed union of states and free people becomes null and void. This culture is headed for the bloodbath.

Nuclear power sounds like a good idea, until something like this happens. The cleanup process at the Fukushima reactors is slow going and high stakes. Humans must in essence give their lives to save the lives of others, and while this sounds glorious in some military venues I don't think many of us would volunteer. The fuel rods need to be removed, the normal systems for their removal have been destroyed, and a mistake could cause a meltdown that would additionally contaminate the immediate area severely and the planetary atmosphere as well, though at what level it is impossible to know. There is talk, and some movement by those who have the means, away from higher risk areas. The southern hemisphere is likely to be far safer than the northern with regard to radiation for the foreseeable future. What interests me is how few people here in the US seem to care one whit about it. Radiation is invisible, and we already have cancer, so how much worse could it get? And will we continue to sell nuclear reactors around the world for the purpose of powering televisions and washing machines? Is there any movement toward less dangerous low tech solutions? I'm not seeing it.

HOMEWORK ATSDR CSEM
Taking an Environmental Health History
atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/csem.asp?csem=17&po=o (or pdf on moodle
complete post-test questions 1-8 by next class

class on week 11 is when we get the take-home final
due friday week 12
homeworks will be reviewed over Thanksgiving
and notice given to students who haven't complete them
no homeworks will be graded late

ACAM & AAEM conference in PDX this week
Marianne Marchese is speaking, 2002 NCNM grad
her book: 8 Wks to Wmns Wellness
( notes (melanoma notes integrated from this date back, radiation notes integrated from this entry to radiation protocol) )

Or not. Gazillions of jellyfish are swarming around nukes in Japan, Israel and Scotland. They've forced 3 nukes to shut down. Any large industrial facility that uses ocean water in volume is at risk of filter overwhelm, including desalinization plants and coastal power plants. They're cleaning up Jellyfish in droves from beaches in Lebanon to keep tourism going. In Savanna, Georgia they're saying that warmer water temperatures brought them in early. It may be that this is just an early and generous "jellyfish season" that has nothing to do with nukes or global warming. In the image below a workman is emptying a filter in a Mediterranean water cooling system for a coal burning plant, and getting a load of jellyfish.(  Images behind cut. )

Nice set of NYT opinion pieces here that offer perspective on how Japan's recent earthquake and tsunami experience bear on our situation here in the US. Their nuclear power plants were designed to be OK for up to 8 hours of a power failure, and because of the quake and wave one-two punch, the power outage outlasted the projection. Here in the US our plants are good for 4 hours without power. But how stable is our power grid? Are we really in better shape than Japan for dealing with what may come? Hard to know...and hope we don't have to find out. But if history is any indicator of the future, the one thing we can say is that unpredictable things do happen.

I didn't realize until I read this on the BBC that so many Japanese would like the American naval base removed from Okinawa. Hatoyama, the current prime minister, was elected with great enthusiasm after he said he'd remove the base but now he's squirming and saying he can't do it. Instead he offers to move the US naval base to a less populated part of the island. He will probably lose his job over it.

( more )

Swiped straight from inibio, this is a warmer upper for the mind and soul. =-]

In Japan for an international conference on religion, [Joseph] Campbell overheard another American delegate, a social philosopher from New York, say to a Shinto priest, "We've been now to a good many ceremonies and have seen quite a few of your shrines. But I don't get your ideology. I don't get your theology." The Japanese paused as though in deep thought and then slowly shook his head. "I think we don't have ideology," he said. "We don't have theology. We dance."

As they put it on Joseph Campbell Foundation web site, "One cautionary note - it's nearly impossible to watch this without bursting into a beatific grin ..."


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/countries/

They're not all the same: the UK, Switzerland, Taiwan, Germany, and Japan all provide healthcare for their citizens.