8.30.2006

ABC 20/20 Tonight Gets It Right on Nuclear

We do NOT need to spend out time focused on North Korea or Iran.

The elephant in the room, as the experts say, what will MOST LIKELY kill us if not the rest of the world with it, is that the U.S. alone has the power of 80 THOUSAND Hiroshimas. Also, that the U.S. and Russian have NOT stood down from mutually assured destruction from the Cold War.

I know a bit about Hiroshima and Nagasaki because my dad was one of the first soldiers who landed there after the blast. The malaria my dad kept suffering all his life until his death two days before his 40th birthday, I realized only recently was probably NOT malaria but radiation poisoning. He died not able to remember most of his children. Somehow that 21 gun salute and full military funeral as a "hero" of World War II just didn't make up for the fact that I lost my dad at age four... or that I lost him four months before his death because he did not recognize me as his child and threw me from his bed. His youngest child was just a few months old and eventually, I would have to raise the son he left behind.

But you know what? Compared to what happened in Nagasaki and Hiroshima and all.. my younger brother and I... and even my father... got off easy. This is why I do NOT support nuclear work period. We know too little and we take too many horrendous risks coupled with outlandish mistakes.