surfing: brand x

1999 september 30

nuked

TOKYO (CNN) -- At least 14 workers were exposed to radiation Thursday when a leak developed at a Japanese nuclear processing plant.

Radiation levels in the area skyrocketed immediately after the accident, up to 4,000 times higher than normal inside the plant and 10 times higher than normal outside the facility.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka said late Thursday that there was "strong possibility" of a "criticality incident" -- meaning the point at which a nuclear chain reaction becomes self-sustaining.

can godzilla and the smog monster be far behind?

i used to have an absolute terror of radiation.

i grew up with testament and the day after but it was never nuclear war that freaked me out. the china syndrome freaked me out. chernobyl freaked me out. hanford still freaks me out, especially watching them move the old reactor up the columbia river to be buried on the nuclear reservation.

i have dreams of my hair falling out, my gums bleeding, giving birth to children missing arms, eyes, bodies. i wouldn't use a microwave for years but i finally got over that when i realized it was probably no more damaging than all the xrays i've subjected myself to in my life.

what most terrifies me about radiation is that, for the most part, i have no control over it. i can avoid most cancers, or so they tell me, by eating well and not smoking and doing this or that or the other. i can avoid other environmental toxins by choosing where to live and what i eat and wear and drive or don't drive. but, while i can vote against nuclear power plants in my area, i can't do anything about those in russia or japan that may leak or blow up and give birth a giant green man-eating radioactive cloud that will zoom across the ocean to land on top of my head poisoning me and my loved ones and my cat.

realizing i have no control over it at all somewhat lessened the terror for me after a few years. you just can't spend your whole life doing the chicken little thing, looking at the sky to see if it is falling, because what are you going to do if it is? hold your arms up and make like atlas?

might as well revel in a little ignorant bliss.

building a fallout shelter this weekend, claire

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