Bliss writes: "Unfortunately, nuclear radiation is heading toward the West Coast from Fukushima, Japan. How safe are we? What can we do?"
'Nuclear Free Zone' sign in California. (photo: ClassicalValues.com)
Fukushima, Japan and Sonoma County, California
24 June 12
Reader Supported News | Perspective
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uclear Free Zone" reads the comforting, official sign at the corner of Highway 116 and Lynch Road. It welcomes people coming into the small town of Sebastopol in Northern California.
"What's a nuclear free zone?" 8-year-old William recently asked his mother, Lynda Williams, who teaches physics at Santa Rosa Junior College. The Sonoma County anti-nuke activist took it as a teaching moment and explained the sign's meaning.
Unfortunately, nuclear radiation is heading toward the West Coast from Fukushima, Japan. How safe are we? What can we do?
An unprecedented triple disaster hit Fukushima in March 2011 - earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns. The earthquake and tsunami were short-lived catastrophes; 20,000 people were killed and 90,000 lost their homes. However, the crisis at Fukushima is not over, and potentially more devastating. Physician Carol Wolman, M.D., a psychiatrist, recently wrote "a damaged nuclear facility is like a wounded beast - exceedingly dangerous and hard to control."
A dozen people from the new Fukushima Response group have been meeting weekly in the last month. They have decided to help organize three July educational forums. Women from the Fukushima Mothers Delegation, eyewitnesses to the catastrophe, will visit Sonoma County and speak at the July 14th Occupy Bohemian Grove. They recently staged a die-in, now on Youtube.
The new hour-long documentary, "Fukushima Never Again," will also be shown on July 18th at the Sebastopol Grange. It will be accompanied by visitors from Japan to answer questions. The film exposes the cover-up by the Japanese government and TEPCO, a company that runs nuclear power plants.
Dr. Wolman, a long-time researcher on nuclear risks, will make a public presentation at the Sebastopol Grange on July 29th. A retired engineer from Japan touring the US to promote the Fukushima cleanup, Yastel Yamada, 72, will join her. "We have to contain this accident," the humble, soft-spoken cancer survivor told The New York Times.
The organizers and their expert consultants are concerned that people have not been adequately informed of the dangers of radioactive contamination reaching us. "We have a choice," writes Dr. Wolman. "We can deny the imminent threat posed by the damaged reactors, or we can unite and work together ... to defuse the danger."
US Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon visited Fukushima this April. He is "pushing for faster action" to avoid radioactive plumes of nuclear waste reaching his state, according to the May 26th New York Times. Sen. Wyden is especially concerned with a pool of radioactive cesium sitting on top of the damaged reactor building #4. He concluded that it poses "an extraordinary and continuing risk." Dr. Wolman writes that another earthquake could topple that fuel pool and lead to "an unquenchable fire which would spew out 9 times as much radiation as Chernobyl."
Kyoto University's Professor Hiroaki Koide, who worked as a fuel engineer at Fukushima in the l990s, shares her concerns. "The No. 4 reactor is visibly damaged and in a fragile state. Any radioactive release could be huge," he told The Times.
Another earthquake - and there have been hundreds in the region since March of 2011 - could ignite that pool and create a horrendous radioactive fire that could not be extinguished by water. Fukushima Response advocates stabilizing that hazardous pool.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government continues to maintain that the problem has been contained. However, according to a June 8th Times article, "Some current and former government officials admitted that Japanese authorities engaged in a pattern of withholding damaging information and denying facts of the nuclear disaster." The officials were apparently concerned that it could lead to public panic.
On June 17th, Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced restarting two of Japan's 50 workable reactors, all of which have been offline since the March 2011, catastrophe. A majority of the Japanese public objects to restarting them.
How concerned should we be in Sonoma County? "Here in California, we are directly in the path of winds and ocean currents coming from Japan," writes Dr. Wolman. "The Japanese government seems more intent on reassuring people than on accelerating the cleanup ... We must mobilize public support to force this quick change."
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More information: fukushimaresponse.org, or Gabriella Randazzo at gabriellarandazzo@gmail.com and (707) 888-0923.
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Shepherd Bliss farms in Sebastopol, teaches college, and can be reached at 3sb@comcast.net.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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They want to put the big banks and big hedge funds and big insurance and big phrma and big agriculture in charge of everything we think, do, say, breathe, eat, drink, smell, hear, drive, sell, whatever.
Thank you to those patriots in that room who invited Nancy Pelosi the reactionary to reveal her true colors.
They want to put the big banks and big hedge funds and big insurance and big phrma and big agriculture in charge of everything we think, do, say, breathe, eat, drink, smell, hear, drive, sell, whatever.
Thank you to those patriots in that room who invited Nancy Pelosi the reactionary to reveal her true colors.
I also wold choose being on the edge of warrant and free speech rights over not trying to find the people who want to blow up innocents.
Me too, but since 2000. And I became a pariah among my liberal friends for NOT swallowing obonbya's campaign rhetoric. My friends, most of them wt least ware finally seeing what a terrible mistake they made in supporting the murderer.
She's no more leftist than Blair or Billy-Bob Clint' was.
So true. Please, everyone remember it was Pelosi who could have ended the Iraq invasion singlehandedly, but REFUSED TO DO SO!
This only proves once again that the people deserve the government they choose. They voted for Pelosi instead of Sheehan in 2008 and they got what they deserved, the same old BS.
You're absolutely correct, IF THE VOTES WERE NOT STACKED AGAINST SHEEHAN...
I live in Arizona and therefore could not have voted for Sheehan as much as I would have liked to, but the election was completely one-sided. Cindy Sheehan had no chance whatsoever of winning.
I would agree that Nancy Pelosi did her very best to keep Sheehan completely out of the public's eye as much as humanly possible, and Pelosi absolutely refused to debate her, but the voters in Pelosi's district clearly were stupid enough and naive enough in a reasonably honest election to vote Pelosi back into office for another term over Cindy Sheehan.
Therefore, as I have stated in my initial comment, they deserve what they are getting right now and since the 2008 elections.
At this point all she does is deliver essentially meaningless platitude-heavy speeches. Her vote to stop the War Party's madness is what I demand, not reassuring and comforting speeches.
If I were so inclined, I would assume the fetal position and suck my thumb any time I chose. I certainly don't need Pelosi's Pavlovian-bell prompts to do it for me...
Ahem, once proud? When was that? Was it when women could not vote? Was it before the voting rights act? The true mark of a conservative is to mythologize the once glorious past as the baseline from which modern departures can be gauged. Only problem is there is no glorious past. Empire is empire.
It has been challenged only once, actually rather benignly, by JFK and we have evidence as to how they reacted to that. All the poor guy was proposing to do was bring the CIA and JCS under control.
Prior to this, old Ike, a willing participant during his two terms in office, had toward the end, second thoughts of his own. To his credit, he gave us a modest warning in his farewell address to the nation.
Ever since, it's been a pretty much a scam. National "security" utilized as rubber stamp for all sorts of money making mischief. Aided by the CIA/MIA shadow government, supported by their corporate sponsors by way of a bought and paid for government.
The idea that we can produce some politician or group of them, who will change things is merely an extension of the con game. The Kucinichs, Feingolds even the Ron Pauls of the world, will be allowed voice only so long as they're no where near the seat of power.
A placebo, to keep the illusion of "representative " government in the forefront of public discourse while the real powers behind the throne, that is the MIC/CIA and their corporate sponsored friends, call the shots.
The GOP sold their soul in 1952.
The Dems mortgaged theirs in 1964 and finally sold it in 1992.
The politically interesting question is, will either one rediscover it?
If so, when?
In the good ol days we used to think Feinstein was the cat's Meow. Wonder who bought thwt woman?
http://news.yahoo.com/pelosis-defense-nsa-surveillance-draws-boos-183845402.html
When Mac Perkel was forcibly removed from the audience because he dared to ask Nancy Pelosi a question during her Netroots Nation presentation after she condemned Edward Snowden & supported Obama & the illegal NSA spying, some in the audience shouted leave him alone.
This was the Netroots Nation political conference. The article also states that some in the audience got up & walked out in support of Perkel. The total shame of it all was that not every person in that audience, down to a man, didn't get up & walk out in support of Perkel.
To add insult to injury, after the few walked out, most stayed & continued to listen to Pelosi's political BS. As the article states, Pelosi's remarks criticizing the Republican majority in the House & encouraging powerful women brought applause, cheers & laughs as if they actually believed she was being sincere after openly supporting the illegal NSA activities because Obama supported it.
The behavior of the majority of the audience being so forgiving of Pelosi & hanging around to listen to the rest of her BS after one of their so-called compatriots was forcibly removed as if this was a Republican conference just shows how badly fractured our side is & their support for the hired thugs who were there to forcibly kick people out if they wanted to speak up.
This goes against the whole idea of Netroots Nation.
Dumb person...he didn't violate the constitution like you did Ms. Pelosi!