What the Fuku is going on over there?

As predicted here, and in case it's not on the news it happened yesterday, Friday, that a machine weighing half a ton fell into the nuclear fuel pool containing, as I understand it, nearly 600 spent fuel rods awaiting removal along with an unspecified number of unspent fuel rods at Fukushima Daiichi unit 3.

Questions:
Have the pool and/or it's contents been compromised?
Can the remaining nuclear rods be removed safely?
What is the worst case scenario?

Notes from the Illusionary Universe

The hologram

The two dimensional  loaded dice

The dinosaur extinct . . .

Basket case

Meet my Maker the Mad Molecule is the title of a collection of 27 short stories by J. P. Donleavy, author of The Ginger Man.

The copy I chanced upon today was free. And so I 'bought' it. One or two pages are in danger of coming adrift from the binding and all have yellowed with age but otherwise for a 1968 Dell paperback the book is in good condition.

Stamped inside the front cover is the address: Basket's Paperback Exchange, Harmony Place, Brattleboro, VT 05301, which is a place in the land of curdled milk and maggoty honey.

When I've read these stories of Alfonse A, Franz F, Gustav G, and all the others who inhabit Donleavey's singular world of far out happenings I too will leave the volume of razor-edged satire where it might easily be found by another.

How many hands has it passed through since it was originally sold all those years ago for 75 cents? And where will it journey to next? These are the questions no-one can answer.

Books have a life of their own.

The Story of European Politics

LESSON No. ONE 

That's it! 

THE END 

The Up-train

The Up-train 

At the top of the hill 

the name of the station 

is heaven, 

*

And travellers proceed 

to the exit, 

each with their goods.

*

Several go 

down, 

on the next bus

*

Erosion

The ruins
Of an old church
Perched on the cliff top

The fog
Rising up
From the sea

Holes
In the walls
And pigeons

Cooing and flocking . . .

The GOD thing ... 2

In his short story 'The judgement seat' W. Somerset Maugham's philosopher is killed in a war and finds himself in a long queue awaiting the decision on his ultimate fate. The Eternal is deciding the fates of women and children whose lives have been suddenly ended by brutal violence. Others having suffered disease and starvation must wait their turn too.

Eventually the philosopher meets his judge. 'No one can deny the fact of Evil ... ' he says to the Omniscient. 'If God cannot prevent Evil he is not all powerful, and if he can prevent it and will not, he is not all-good.'

An old argument.

Finally the Eternal speaks, 'I sometimes think that the stars never shine more brightly than when reflected in the muddy waters of a wayside ditch.'

He then turns his attention to three souls who have been waiting patiently. Two men and a woman. The eternal triangle.  He considers their lives. Their good but timid lives. And then he blows lightly like a man might blow out a match. With one small breath he annihilates them. They are gone.

The Eternal speaks, as if to himself. 'I have often wondered why men think I attach so much importance to sexual irregularity. If they read my works more attentively they would see that I have always been sympathetic to that form of human frailty.'

Now he turns to the philosopher.

'You cannot but allow that on this occasion I have very happily combined my All-power with my All-goodness.'

The fate of the philosopher is left in the balance.

The GOD thing

In the name of GOD!
The copied roar of battle cry

They know what GOD
Doth wish

In GOD
They too now trust where

Guns were left to rust

A little Elvis nostalgia

We know Elvis Presley was the son of Gladys and Vernon Presley but from where did the ancestors of this couple with their traditional Welsh names originate? 

My favourite theory is that they came originally from Wales, a place known as the Land of Song. And although I can't sing, it is, I'm proud to say, the land of my birth. 

There is an area of moorland and hills with rocky outcrops in Wales known as the Preseli Hills. It is not unreasonable to assume that the American name of Presley is from that part of Wales. 

The Preseli Hills are of historical significance for it is there that the unique bluestones for Stonehenge were quarried thousands of years ago. 

Perhaps some ancient ancestors of the King of Rock and Roll helped to build the iconic stone circle? I like to think so.  

The photos below were taken recently at the World's Smallest Elvis Presley Show in Austria.

Salt of the Earth

The exemplary Carl Sagan, one of the world's most brilliant minds, says in his book Broca's Brain that there are 10,000,000,000,000,000 atoms in one grain of salt. That is to say there are ten million billion atoms in one microgram of sodium chloride. 

If we could shrink ourselves into this crystalline world, he tells us, we would see rank upon rank of atoms in an ordered array, a regular alternating structure - sodium, chlorine, sodium, chlorine, specifying the sheet of atoms we are standing on and all the sheets above and below us. 

A footnote informs us that chlorine (Cl) is a poisonous gas* deployed on battlefields during the first World War and that sodium (Na) is a corrosive metal which burns upon contact with water. Together they make NaCl, that is to say a placid and unpoisonous material, table salt. 

*thankfully these days most of the world's countries have signed an agreement not to use poisonous gas or chemical weapons in war.

Somnambulism and War

In 2013, as if to mark the passing of 99 years since the outbreak of "The War to End all Wars" the World enjoyed 20 more wars.  

This year, 2014, the way events are playing out, that figure could be comfortably exceeded. 

The World is populated with people good and great; but it is also a home to cheats and swindlers, the recklessly overambitious, and those with a false moral compass. 

Control-freaks and their servants who so-often lead their people into foolish wars think nothing of deviating from the truth and glossing over the facts if called to give testimony at post-war tribunals and inquiries. 

The first World War  was the result of bigotry, intolerance, prejudice, evilness, malevolence, ill-will, oppression, cowardice and GREED. I cannot believe it had much to do with somnambulism as the current Zeitgeist seems to have it. Nevertheless I am prepared to delve into Christopher Clark's tome The Sleepwalkers.

The photos to which I've added captions are from an exhibition organized by schoolchildren in Bad Ischl, Austria. 

Soldiers prepare to . . .

Hang up their washing in the House of God . . .

 And visit the Post Office

The Women at Uniform Factory . . .

And the Munitions Factory do their bit too 

War is as simple as A; B; C.
A is for Aero . . . 

B is for Boat . . .

C is for Cannon . . .

D is for Death  . . .

Perhaps it's time to wake up . . . 

War is a Racket  -
And one they can Bank on!