Keeping Our Fingers Crossed

Normally, my mind glazes over when I see charts full of numbers.  But A.E.Brain has a way of making such things comprehensible.  I'm happy for that, because I so distrust media coverage of nearly any event, and while Japanese officialdom is, to my knowledge, no more or less dishonest than its counterpart in any other country, my normal distrust of government is heightened by the Japanese need to save face in times of crisis.


Reading her blog, I think the best most of us can do now is to cross our fingers.  Some radiation has leaked, and people within 19 miles of the Fukushima Dai-Chi nuclear power plant have been advised to stay indoors.  But beyond that area, no one has been exposed to worrisome levels of radiation.  Not yet, anyway.

Japan and the Children of Chernobyl

It seems that things are going from bad to worse in Japan.  Now there's been a meltdown in one of the nuclear reactors there, and radiation has been detected more than 100 miles away.


I've never had children and probably never will. I also don't think I'm an extraordinarily sensitive person.  But I can't help but to think about the children of Chernobyl:  the ones who were affected by that disaster as well as the ones who've been born since then.  


In addition to the ones who've been sick, there are the ones who've dealt with the loss of parents and other family members.  Even if they haven't had such tragedies befall them, they have been exposed to radiation and as most haven't the means, and others the desire, to leave, they will be exposed to that radiation for the rest of their lives.  


And the mothers, if they survived, will have to deal with their kids getting sicker and possibly dying before them.  Could a similar fait await the mothers and children of Japan?