Brainy Quote of the Day

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Friday...


This relates to a post that appeared on Friday's anniversary. A date we sadly didn't commemorate more broadly nor recollect its significance.

It was the second bombing on Nagasaki, some say since the Japanese were looking for a path to surrender, completely unnecessary. Possibly a sophomoric display of military might on our part.

It was the beginning of being raised on "duck and cover" drills (as IF that would save anyone!).

It was bomb shelters if you could afford them (suburbia for the most part), stockpiling supplies and perhaps the genesis of people waiting for doomsday rather than solving the problems that could lead to it.

It was the aftermath of the darker side of science: the ability to make academic advances, medical miracles, technological wonders and yet possess within ourselves the ability to commit mass global genocide by the slow moving train wreck of polluting the atmosphere and oceans, or the flash of thermonuclear brilliance followed by its inevitable winter.

It was once considered "scientific" to promote eugenics. A Nobel laureate in physics, William Shockley, and co-founder of the transistor, one of its staunchest advocates.

I am an advocate of all branches of society: art, history, literature, politics, religion, science, etcetera working together rather than pointing fingers, reciting talking points and placing blame on one another.

Or: we may soon discover the other reason the stars of SETI are silent, is the aliens eventually became their own entropy...

Today marks the 68th anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The bomb, named “Fat Man,” was the first plutonium bomb ever to be deployed, and followed the Aug. 6 dropping of the uranium bomb “Little Boy” on Hiroshima.

But even after 68 years, both the history of nuclear weapons and their future are still the subject of debate.

Speaking at the memorial ceremony in Nagasaki, Mayor Tomihisa Taue publicly condemned Japan’s government for failing to push nuclear disarmament. Mr. Taue spoke out against the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe – who was present – for failing to sign a UN disarmament agreement in April, according to the Japan Daily Press. Taue said the refusal to sign meant Japan was “betraying the expectations of global society.”

Christian Science Monitor:
Nagasaki bombing: Remembering - and starting to forget - its legacy

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