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I just watched a documentary on Netflix about nuclear power, hoping to get some more information on the science of it all, because of all the issues in the world, from homelessness to war in the Middle East, it’s the one on which I don’t have a fixed opinion.
On the one hand, I’m much more an advocate of solar and wind power, which are perfectly clean and could probably give us all the power we need, if enough of them were deployed. On the other, nuclear plants can deliver much more energy for the amount of land needed, and also don’t release carbons into the air, making them much cleaner than coal or oil burning electrical plants which, despite Chernobyl and Fukushima, have killed far more people.
But, the documentary was much more about tracing the history of nuclear energy, and the opposition to it, with the implication that there are honest and decent people on both sides. On this issue, I actually believe that to be true. I don’t want to be friends with people who love war and urge more of it, or who think police should be allowed to murder all the black people they want, but I can totally be friends with people who are pro-nuclear.
There were a couple of things in the doc, however, which pushed me in the anti-nuke direction. One was a nuclear scientist talking about ‘the lesson to be learned from Fukushima,’ which was, in his opinion, that better safety procedures were needed. I thought, dude, you may have a PhD in nuclear physics and I don’t, but that is absolutely not the lesson to be learned from Fukushima. The lesson of Fukushima is that nuclear power plants should not be built near fault lines, and probably not near coastlines, either. In fact, Japan is not a good place for nuclear energy at all. Sorry, Japan.
The other was the fact that usually when they cited a politician who was supportive of nuclear energy, it was some corrupt, war mongering asshole. Republicans and Tories were there in abundance, but so was Tony Blair, who turned out to be as big a war monger as any of them.
Still, there wasn’t enough science in the program to sway my opinion one way or another. I still say IF it could be proven safe, then I’d be for it. But that’s very much a question for scientists to decide, and I don’t think they have a clear consensus on this issue yet. So, let’s keep pushing for more solar and wind energy. Unless a wind turbine happens to fall over and land on a passing cow, there isn’t much danger in them at all.

For most of my life, it was considered bad form, and by many it still is, to say anything bad about someone who’s recently died. For most people, it still holds. If somebody was a worthless sod, lazy as the day is long, and owed everybody money, we still say how sorry we are that they’re gone, because we wouldn’t want to say anything bad in front of their family.
But, in some cases, I no longer feel that way. We could have a world where everybody lives in peace, has plenty of clean water to drink and fresh air to breathe, good schools and health care. We don’t, because there are those human beings among us on this planet who prefer spending trillions of dollars blowing people up, along with their homes and entire cities, inflicting massive amounts of pain.
Colin Powell was one of those people, and I’m glad the son of a bitch is dead. He sat in front of the U.N., and lied straight into the face of the entire world. He said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and he knew perfectly well he was lying. The vial he was holding up was as empty as the ‘list of communists’ Joe McCarthy would wave about while he was speaking was blank. Any apologies made later were hollow.
The ones with the weapons of mass destruction were the Americans, and they unleashed them on the defenseless Iraqi people with a vengeance. Saddam Hussein could not have caused the same amount of misery in Iraq if he had ruled for a dozen lifetimes.
Powell is not forgiven. Not even in death.

I am often critical of the USA, and with good reason, but, to be fair, there are some things that the U.S. gets right. The national parks system, for instance. Ever since Teddy Roosevelt established the system, it has provided millions of American’s the opportunity to get a good look at the world the way it was meant to be. Despite recent efforts by conservative politicians to chip away at the system, and being over-run by public demand, to the point that there are traffic jams within the parks at times, and the campgrounds are filled with modern conveniences that aren’t in tune with nature at all, the 423 American national parks are still something to be proud of.
But, China is topping us once again. I just read this article about how China is creating a national park system with over 10,000 national parks! Admittedly, there is a bit of cheating going on, or at least semantic juggling. They are setting up a national parks system to centralize the planning in what is already one of the most centrally planned countries on Earth, and renaming all of their currently existing nature reserves as national parks.
Still, 10,000 is a very impressive number, and they are not merely renaming, but in many cases seriously upgrading, because it will be great for their tourist industry, create several thousand new jobs (not so much, in terms of their overall population, but it will no doubt help out a bit in the regions these parks are in) and it will be great for the environment. Also, they’ll be able to say they have 20 times as many national parks as the U.S.
So, lots of advantages. Kudos to China for this program and I hope it works out well for them. We need more parks (with more trees), everywhere in the world.

I did something very cool this afternoon, even life changing in a way. I don’t know if this possibility has actually been there for a while, and I’m one of the last, unhip, out of the loop characters to figure it out, or if it’s a new thing, but either way, I’ve discovered it now and it’s going to be my routine from now on.
I bought marijuana over the counter. It’s a lovely, little, hole in the wall shop where they also sell bongs and marijuana related products like skin cream and medicaments, so I was a bit worried that the marijuana would be ‘for medicinal purposes’ and wouldn’t, somehow, be the same as regular old getting stoned as fuck marijuana, but no worries there any more. Bought my pot, brought it home and smoked a joint and, if anything, it’s a bit stronger than what I’m used to.
Not that I’ve ever had complaints about quality, and I’ve been buying from the same dealer for many years now, so I feel a bit guilty and disloyal about that. The price is exactly the same, the amount is exactly the same, and he was very reliable, but it is really nice to just go into a shop, a nice, well lit shop, and not have to send text messages to set up a meeting in the park with the homeless people, and surreptitiously transfer the money in a handshake and hurriedly stuff the bags into my pocket, worrying about the police the whole time.
So, there’s no going back. Prague just got a bit cooler, my life just got a little bit easier.

I woke up at 11 a.m. this morning. That’s not that unusual for most people, and there are some who would even consider it early. Our internal clocks are not all set at the same time, and don’t even operate at the same speed.
But, for me, it’s a change, an adjustment. I have been, throughout my adult life, and even in my childhood, I guess, an early riser. Many is the time I’ve woken up hours before anybody else, just because I was done sleeping, and gone out for a long walk. In the country, in the city, on vacation, doesn’t matter. It is always a fresh view of the world at that time of day. You get to see what the world would look like without people, you can hear the birds singing, which they do all day but most of the time the air is filled with the sound of traffic, the humming of tires across the pavement, the doppler roar of approaching engines and the doppler whine of their retreat, the occasional honk of a horn which says “I am a rude bastard! Fuck you for existing!”, and the all too frequent wail of a siren which is an indicator that somewhere something is going very, very badly for somebody.
It is a great time of day to go out walking, clear your head, and write a poem or two, if you are lucky.
But, today I woke up at 11 and I feel quite good about it. I’m well rested, and ready to deal with the new day. I am retired. I am 67. And, I must admit, I could kind of get used to this.