I must admit that last Wednesday I did not substitute The Robe for Lost as promised in a previous post. My intentions were good. I had the book next to the recliner. I...............39 hours earlier…
I just dropped my daughter and her friend off at the mall and was going to do a little shopping for myself. As I pulled into Dick's Sporting Goods I heard Dennis Prager introduce an upcoming guest on his radio show. Gwyneth Cravens was going to discuss her book concerning nuclear power.
Nuclear power. I think of my son's autobiographical descriptor on one of his blog posts, "I am a die-hard conservative, Reagan politics, pro-nuclear power, confessional Lutheran." Thinking little of the interview, I stepped out of the car, locked the door, side stepped the slush and went inside.
17 minutes later…
The automatic doors herd me out the store as I leave with more than I entered: a headache from the over-priced, under-stocked big box sporting goods store. Pulling out of the parking lot, I heard Cravens explain her initial skepticism about nuclear power and her subsequent transformation from opponent to proponent.
I’m not a numbers guy. I don’t like formulas, never understood mathematical theories, theorems and/or serums. I like that last sentence, however. The syntactic balance of phrases and the alliterative rhythm create a powerful, linguistic treasure. I’m a word guy. And this is why I found my intrigue in Cravens’ book odd.
27 hours earlier…
I reached under the lampshade and clicked on the light. Tuesday morning blackness was immediately transformed to a soft amber glow easing me into the week’s duties: logging into GradeBookDemon.com, grading papers, listening to excuses, challenging intellect and helping young ones grow in their ability to write, think, learn. Before any of that began I logged onto the library’s website and placed a hold on Cravens’ book, Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy
16 hours previously from the spot of the foul...
A voice on my answering machine informed me I had a book on hold.
Four-score and twenty minutes after the second overtime…
After Wednesday’s bell dismissed the building’s human contents, I headed to the library, checked out the book and journeyed home.
7 dog minutes later…
I hunkered down into my favorite reading chair, glanced at the clock and knew I had two hours before I covered myself with The Robe. As a kind of reading warm-up, I grabbed Cravens' book.
“The worst large-scale consequence of Chernobyl has been thyroid cancer in Ukrainian and Belarusian children. I am told by Dr. Stanislav Shushkevich, the first
Belarusian head of state and a nuclear physicist, that every Soviet fallout shelter held a supply of potassium iodide that would have protected the children by saturating their thyroid glands, preventing the uptake of radioactive iodine-131, but that Moscow refused to allow the tablets to be distributed until it was too late and the children had already been exposed. Chernobyl was a failure not of nuclear power but of the Soviet political system.”
17 minutes later…
The automatic doors herd me out the store as I leave with more than I entered: a headache from the over-priced, under-stocked big box sporting goods store. Pulling out of the parking lot, I heard Cravens explain her initial skepticism about nuclear power and her subsequent transformation from opponent to proponent.
I’m not a numbers guy. I don’t like formulas, never understood mathematical theories, theorems and/or serums. I like that last sentence, however. The syntactic balance of phrases and the alliterative rhythm create a powerful, linguistic treasure. I’m a word guy. And this is why I found my intrigue in Cravens’ book odd.
27 hours earlier…
I reached under the lampshade and clicked on the light. Tuesday morning blackness was immediately transformed to a soft amber glow easing me into the week’s duties: logging into GradeBookDemon.com, grading papers, listening to excuses, challenging intellect and helping young ones grow in their ability to write, think, learn. Before any of that began I logged onto the library’s website and placed a hold on Cravens’ book, Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy
16 hours previously from the spot of the foul...
A voice on my answering machine informed me I had a book on hold.
Four-score and twenty minutes after the second overtime…
After Wednesday’s bell dismissed the building’s human contents, I headed to the library, checked out the book and journeyed home.
7 dog minutes later…
I hunkered down into my favorite reading chair, glanced at the clock and knew I had two hours before I covered myself with The Robe. As a kind of reading warm-up, I grabbed Cravens' book.
“The worst large-scale consequence of Chernobyl has been thyroid cancer in Ukrainian and Belarusian children. I am told by Dr. Stanislav Shushkevich, the first
Belarusian head of state and a nuclear physicist, that every Soviet fallout shelter held a supply of potassium iodide that would have protected the children by saturating their thyroid glands, preventing the uptake of radioactive iodine-131, but that Moscow refused to allow the tablets to be distributed until it was too late and the children had already been exposed. Chernobyl was a failure not of nuclear power but of the Soviet political system.”With those words, I was hooked. With these words from the inside cover, so will you.
“She refutes the major arguments against nuclear power one by one, making clear, for example, that a stroll through Grand Central Terminal exposes a person to more radiation than a walk of equal length through a uranium mine; that average background radiation around Chernobyl and in Hiroshima is lower than in Denver; that there are no ‘cancer clusters’ near nuclear facilities; that terrorists could neither penetrate the security at an American nuclear plant nor make an atomic bomb from its fuel; that nuclear waste can be – and already is – safely stored; that wind and solar power, while important, can meet only a fraction of the demand for electricity; that a coal plant releases more radiation than a nuclear plant and also emits deadly toxic waste that kills thousands of Americans a month; that in its fifty-year history American nuclear power has not caused a single death.”
So I didn’t read The Robe. I will. For now, I’m going to satisfy my Cravens craving and learn more about nuclear energy.
5 card-carrying, union breaks later…
As for next week, I won’t be watching Lost.
Not then, not ever.
Seriously.
I mean that.
I’ve expunged that show from my existence. Unlike Jack and Kate, who are now on the island but about to be shot by Jin, I won’t be back.
Ever.
“She refutes the major arguments against nuclear power one by one, making clear, for example, that a stroll through Grand Central Terminal exposes a person to more radiation than a walk of equal length through a uranium mine; that average background radiation around Chernobyl and in Hiroshima is lower than in Denver; that there are no ‘cancer clusters’ near nuclear facilities; that terrorists could neither penetrate the security at an American nuclear plant nor make an atomic bomb from its fuel; that nuclear waste can be – and already is – safely stored; that wind and solar power, while important, can meet only a fraction of the demand for electricity; that a coal plant releases more radiation than a nuclear plant and also emits deadly toxic waste that kills thousands of Americans a month; that in its fifty-year history American nuclear power has not caused a single death.”
So I didn’t read The Robe. I will. For now, I’m going to satisfy my Cravens craving and learn more about nuclear energy.
5 card-carrying, union breaks later…
As for next week, I won’t be watching Lost.
Not then, not ever.
Seriously.
I mean that.
I’ve expunged that show from my existence. Unlike Jack and Kate, who are now on the island but about to be shot by Jin, I won’t be back.
Ever.
I promise.
2 comments:
Thanks Mr. Brandt, and thanks for the Star Wars allusion. I'm not quite the Star Wars fan you seem to be, so I decided to look up "Jedi."
According to Wikipedia,
"The Jedi are members of a fictional monastic order in the Star Wars galaxy created by George Lucas. Known for their observance of The Force,[1] specifically the "light side" of the force, and the rejection of the "dark side" of the Force, as well as the dark side's adherents, the Sith."
Haha...very interesting.
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