I have opinions, and I did once work in the nuclear power industry.  But I am not advocating anything (I don’t think).  I just wish there was some way to talk about this that does what news is supposed to do: inform people and help them understand what’s going on around them.  And, right now, what’s happening seems scary.  I have a friend who is in Japan, and is now flying back to the United States.  I’m sure many others are trying to decide what to do, what the risks are, and the climate of fear and counter-attacks can’t possibly help.

One pole is “Catastrophe.”  Other words being used include “disaster” and “calamity.”  None of these is technically wrong.  A nuclear meltdown is a catastrophe.  It has huge economic consequences, and the loss of major power generating capacity as a country struggles to recover from one of the biggest earthquakes in history magnifies all the other problems the country is facing.  A major release of radioactive contamination is also a disaster.  The long-term health consequences include increase birth defects and cancer rates across the affected population.  But the popular imagination seems to be something of a much greater magnitude.  I’ve even seen someone reference a population being “wiped out.”

No, the health consequences may be serious, but the impact will never be anything like that of the earthquake itself.  Nor will it cause damage on a scale that even approaches the scale of the BP oil spill.  For that matter, it you add up the deaths from recent coal mine disasters along with the many, many cancer deaths from coal mining, you have a disaster that dwarfs anything that might emerge from this.

On the other hand, some people seem to completely dismiss it all.  I’ve seen links to a blogger who compares this to going outside with your visa card.  Others make a somewhat valid comparison to radiation from medical treatments.  Some of the same news stories that start with alarmist headlines then make a comment like “radiation was detected, but it was easily washed off with soap and water.”  Technically true, but that statement describes a decontamination procedure for workers, not the scope or level of the threat.  The kind of contamination you can wash off is a type, one that is less dangerous to workers, but far more dangerous to a general population or ecology.

It’s not trivial that the workers at these nuclear power plants are putting themselves at grave risk in order to minimize the larger health threats to a population.  It’s not trivial that, even if radiation releases are controlled, the damaged cores will continue to be health/radiation problem for thousands of years.  The procedures for disposal of spent fuel are bad ridiculously undeveloped, but partially melted cores are a much bigger problem that we really haven’t addressed.  At all.  Unfortunately some of the people who say “don’t trivialize,” are pushing their own political agendas, which is equally trivializing.  They immediately tie the discussion of nuclear reactors back to the very real tragedy of the earthquake itself.  Which trivializes the larger tragedy, in my view.

I started a discussion on Facebook, pointing out a lot of reporters were using words they didn’t understand, to underscore fears that are unrelated to reality.  I wasn’t trying to make a political statement about nuclear power, but some interpreted it that way.  I do have one, but it’s complicated.

Here, I just want to focus on the words and what they mean.  There are concerns, and there is potential danger.  But the words being used don’t let people properly weight that danger, and people from the “nuclear power is totally safe” side aren’t really helping, because they carry that message along with their “reassurances.”

Here’s my quick vocabulary, and some potential consequences:

Explosion — none of the plants in discussion are capable of producing a nuclear explosions.  Really.  Take my word for it.  The explosions being discussed could be chemical, as a result of hydrogen splitting and build-up, or steam (which is not technically and explosion) that could result from melting, partial melting, flash criticality, or a rupture in a pressure system somewhere.

Critical — If the word is being used in the technical sense, it means that there is a self-sustaining nuclear reaction occurring.  Nuclear reactors go “critical” as part of their normal operations.  Criticality means a lot higher heat generation, and you don’t want it to happen if the reactor is not being cooled and monitored.  But knowing it is critical doesn’t tell you the magnitude of the problem.  Inversely, even if a reactor is not critical, it still generates and enormous amount of heat.  Most of the dangers from a nuclear reactor do not require it to be critical.

Meltdown (Partial) — Within the nuclear industry, this is a disaster.  To the general public, it really isn’t.  If the reactor core experiences distortion as result of heat, that’s a meltdown.  Flow is obstructed, and your power generating asset is now a big piece of radioactive trash that you have to store, monitor, and cool until society decides how to deal with nuclear waste.

Meltdown (complete) – Way more serious.  But still not in ways most people probably imagine.  What melts is the core (fuel rods, cladding, pressure vessel).  The molten mess should disperse and cool in the bedding underneath the containment structure, probably creating a ceramic shell around itself.  But on the way, it can create other problems: if it goes critical, a radiation flare; if it hits groundwater (or injected seawater breaks containment) a large plume of steam containing radioactive contamination; and if it causes fires, most old plants also have a whole bunch of particulate contamination that would be carried by the smoke.

Meltdown Consequences — I don’t know a lot about the construction of these plants, the surrounding area, or the likelihood of breaking containment, but as a general rule:

If the meltdown causes a criticality flare of some kind (and assuming the normal shielding and containment has been compromised) — the flare would probably not reach local populations, and definitely not past the immediate vicinity which has been evacuated.  The flare would also be very brief.  However, the workers trying to save the plant could be in bad shape.

If the meltdown splits the cladding and releases a lot of the radioactive gases produced by fission, and these are then vented or otherwise escape from containment, the danger would still be primarily to workers in the immediate vicinity.  The gases have short half-lives and decay very quickly.

However, if there is a massive plume of steam or smoke, then there is a potential for longer-lived elements to be carried far.  Even if the core itself melts into the bedding, most old nuclear power plants have build-ups of radioactive corrosion products, usually Cobalt 60 (which comes from irradiating Iron 59).  Since it has a half-live of over 5 years, and is pretty active, it can be a major problem if spread over a wide area.

Two other phrases that get thrown into the discussion:

Three Mile Island – this is relevant, as TMI was also a water-cooled reactor, and did undergo partial meltdown.  However, TMI did not lose a lot of the support systems, and containment remained intact.

Chernobyl — A lot less relevant, as Chernobyl was an air-cooled graphite reactor.  The reactor core itself actually burned, producing a huge contamination area.  Also, there was very little shielding.

A few months ago, a probable Skank by the name of Rosemary Port created an anonymous blog, in which she gave another probably Skank, Liskula Cohen an award for being the Skankiest Ho in NYC.  Among the some 1,700 viewers of this blog was the targeted maybe-skank, who got all offended.  Some damage had been done, but not very much.  A blog that gets 1,700 visitors is very, very low-impact.  And few of those visitors are likely to remember much.  Fewer still are likely to credit an anonymous source.  But, still, it was a nasty thing to say.  Maybe.  Even if it was true.

The real damage started when Cohen’s lawyer, Steve Wagner, decided to sue this anonymous blogger.  Instead of, say, 1,700 people thinking of this partying model as a “Skank-Ho”, now millions and millions of people are making that association.  As is Google.  Put in Skank, and the first picture you get is Liskula Cohen.  The first persons mentioned are Liskula Cohen and Rosemary Port.  Are they really skanks?  I don’t know, but who am I to argue with Google?  Can Liskula Cohen sue her lawyer?  After all, the damage done to her reputation by his lawsuit far, far exceeds that from the barely known anonymous blog.

And who could Jessica Biel sue?  Over 753 articles have headlined her as the “most dangerous celebrity in cyberspace” claiming that “Jessica Biel could give you a (PC) virus.”  Isn’t that a bit negative?  What did she do to earn this honor?  MacAfee created a list of celebrities who they claim are dangerous when searched for.  Naturally, they are selling something.    Can anyone double check their findings?  Seems to me that it’s just a pure press release play, using celebrity names to raise fear and drive people to buy more MacAfee.  Personally, I’ve never gotten a virus from Jessica Biel, or from any other online celebrity.

We’ll set aside for a moment the one astonishingly bad idea, the theme of splashing the customer with water.  Everything else about the commercial should have completely sold us on how much better and tastier the LJS product is.  More fish-like.

But with fast food, the actual substance rarely matters.  McDonald’s isn’t selling us fish.  If you want fish, go to a sea-food restaurant.  McDonald’s is selling a combination of magic and crave-satisfaction.  Setting the actual food product aside, would rather get splashed with a bucket of water while holding a tray full of food?  Or would you rather eat something, with obvious satisfaction, while the magical fish sings to you?  And, to top it off, your friend comes in and watches you with envy?  Because he’s not in the secret magic-singing-fish club.

McDonald’s wins with the most important fast-food demographics:

• Kids love magic.  They don’t care if what they eat is closer to real food, as long as it’s breaded, salty, and reminds them of a magical singing fish who wants part of its body back.
• Stoners need satisfaction.  Late-night stoners and drunks want something that will give them that sense of satisfaction you see on the guy’s face, as he stares down the singing fish.
• Parents want their kids to shut up.  See point #1
• Cubicle rats want something they can take back to their desk.  Something that doesn’t seem too messy.  The fillet o’ fish may not be food, but it looks tidy.  LJS splashes you and your food with a bucket of water.

• Giant balls of twine and three-story lava-lamps, huge fiberglass dinosaurs in the middle of nowhere.  A ranch of Cadillacs half-buried.
• Religious fundies who hate the “War on Christmas”.  Other religious fundies who believe Christmas is a tool of the devil. (Satan/Santa)
• Gun-toting rednecks
• Hippie chicks with un-shaved arm-pits
• Courses in multi-culturalism that reduce each culture to pop spiritualism
• Courses in home management in college
• Republicans who have integrity and really believe their economic religion helps more poor people than any other method
• Exploiters of every stripe who whip up American sincerity and make a buck
• Democrats who served honorably in every branch of the military
• Chickenhawk politicians who sound righteous as they send people off to war, having never served themselves (this started long before the current Neo-cons)
• Strident athiests
• Flag burners
• Get-off-my-lawn old veterans
• Illegal immigrants
• First, second, and third generation immigrants
• Racists
• People who claim not to be racists, but always find other reasons to hate people from other cultures or ethnic groups
•  People who you assume are racist, but turn out not to be
• Dennis Hopper
• John Wayne
• Martha Stewart
• American Idol

The exact mix keeps changing, but it’s still my country and I always want the best for it.  When President Bush decided to invade the wrong country, resulting in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, I wanted something better.  But, like most people, I did not root for failure.  I wanted the war to be over quickly, I wanted stability to return.  I wanted few casualties.  Because, though it was a bad decision, the best thing for our country was an easy resolution.  I also knew that was not likely.

A lot of sock-pundits on the right accused liberals of rooting for the failure we eventually felt.  No, we just foresaw it.  Nobody wanted it.  But, they project thoughts into our head.  We can play that game, maybe THEY were rooting for failure so then they could prove that we were rooting for failue!  Who knows what dark threads take hold in the human soul?

Now Rush Limbaugh is openly rooting for failure.  Why?  Because he doesn’t love America.  Not all of it.  He has picked the parts he likes, and will only love an America if it fits that model.  That’s sort of like only loving your kid if he goes to the same college you did.  Rush believes in “Individualism and Capitalism” and whatever.  As if those things are going away.  We haven’t been the capitalist country he espouses since before WWII.  And we aren’t any closer to pure socialism than we were eight years ago.  But the diseased economic religion of tax cuts and minimal regulation has produced a huge bill.  If we don’t pay it now, it will only get bigger.  Rush is apparently rooting that our efforts to save the economy will fail.  That is the most unpatriotic thing I’ve heard in a long time.

The stated claim that this somehow “defends marriage” is too ludicrous to be taken seriously.  Straight celebrity couples are doing far more damage to the image and reputation of marriage than any known gay couple.  We all know about Britney Spears and Kevin Federline.  Name one gay couple who has had anywhere near the public drama?  No, this argument is about possession of a word.  Who gets to define the term marriage?  In California, it’s a large group of people who claim the word Christian who also want to claim the word marriage.  For some reason, they feel their message is weak, so they turn to the State to do it for them.

Why not?  The California initiative system lets people pull pretty much any stupid idea out of their collective ass, and then vote it into place.  Even something as stupid as having the State force the religious definition of a term into law.  People in California are perfectly happy to flood courts with half-baked legislation, though they then complain about judges making law.

But, hey, anybody can play.  If we’re going to have the State define religious terms, let’s have them define something big.  How about the term Christian?

Of course we could make up any definition and if we got enough signatures, it would go on the ballot.  But let’s try to give it some reasonable basis.  The term Christian should obviously pertain to someone who “follows Christ”.  So the best authority would be Christ telling people how to follow him.  For instance:

Matthew 19, 21 – 22,

The young man said to him, “All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to (the) poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

Also,

Luke 6, 30, 36 – 37

To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back.

But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as (also) your Father is merciful. “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.

So, some principles we can abstract:

• Giving up possessions
• Turning the other cheek
• Giving to people who ask of you
• Non-judgmentalism

Therefore we can safely remove the title of Christian from churches where wealth is common, where war is promoted, where generosity, in any form, is derided, and where people are judged by anyone other than God.

Since law is usually better with large, broad strokes, let’s just say that any church that has large buildings, fancy cars in the parking lot, that advocated for the War in Iraq, that opposes social programs, or that encouraged members to vote yes on Proposition 8 can no longer carry the name, Christian. And, when in the State of California, anybody who violates these premises, yet calls themselves a Christian, will be fined or jailed.  Why not?

It’s not hate, it’s patriotism. 

If you believe, as I do, that she is utterly unqualified, and that the country is in deep trouble, you have to believe that Palin is a threat to our country.  It’s not just politics.  I don’t agree with a lot of conservative positions, but usually from a moral, philosophical, or economic basis.  I don’t usually think they are trying to destroy our nation.  We can argue over minium wage, a woman’s right to choose, and proposition 8 (hate).  These are important arguments, and the Republicans are morally wrong.  But lots of people are wrong.  I’m sure I’m wrong about something too.

Patriotism is a different thing.  Patriotism starts from the premise that this is my country, and I care about what happens to it.  I don’t think it’s the greatest possible country, or that it’s always right.  But I live here, as do most of the people I love.  It has given me life, prosperity, space to become who I am.  I owe it something in return.

One thing I owe it is criticism of its leaders.  If we’re going into a war we can’t win, for reasons that are misguided, I owe it to myself, to the troops, to the future of our country, to object.  Also, while my politics are important, I owe the country at least the awareness that people who disagree with me are still Americans.  We’re in this together.

If I were to push a person or an agenda that satisfies my personal interests, the economic status of my class, or the specific requirements of my religion, that has to be balanced against the interests of the country as a whole.  I can do so, of course.  But if I push for my particular bracket to get great tax relief, while other brackets suffer, that’s not patriotic.  If I take it to the extreme, undercutting the financial health of the country as a whole, I’m being unpatriotic.

After the Katie Couric interview, it became obvious to me that Palin is not ready to lead.  Not even close.  If you don’t see that, and you are for Palin still, that’s fine.  We disagree.  But if you did see it and are ignoring it because she represents your party or your religion, then you are being unpatriotic.  The most patriotic thing I can do, right now, is to strive against her.  It’s not because I hate her, it’s because I love this country.