We've all seen the scenes of devastation in Japan. It is heartbreaking and the Japanese people will recover but as a nation they've taken a serious blow. So what do the so-called cable news outlets focus on. Oh that's right yeah Japan's radiation is going to destroy the world, its pouring onto Californian beaches, polluting our air and water and food and - well actually its not. There is no doubt that miniscule amounts of radiation have been detected in rainwater in CO and ID but the emphasis here is on the word 'miniscule' and to the cries of 'its three mile island all over again'. Here's a link to the nuclear regulatory commission report
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html
Read even the first paragraph and you'll find that no one died
But that isn't a story, that doesn't scare you that doesn't make you watch cable TV. I saw a clip of a CNBC show host arguing with the 'nuclear expert' insisting that he was wrong and she was right.
And here, Look at this link read the screaming headline and then the body of the article
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/28/radiation.us/
So feel free to panic but before you spread what you just heard on CNN or MSNBC or that weird looking Beck person, or scary Nancy, or even on-the-spot Anderson's show take a deep breath and go in search of some facts.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/03/what-the-media-doesnt-get-about-meltdowns/72418/
http://gizmodo.com/#!5782590/how-does-radiation-travel-and-what-kinds-of-damage-can-it-do
Monday, March 28, 2011
When did it become someone elses fault?
This trend hasn't been creeping up on us, its already here. My parents, bless 'em taught me to stand on my own two feet by making my own mistakes and I made a lot of them. From what type of food I chose to eat - liver - just the word turns my stomach. To the friends I hung out with - to what time I went to bed. Phrases like 'on your head be it.' or 'are you sure you know what you're doing' to 'watch where you're going' and Mum's personal favourite 'you've made your bed now you can lie in it.' All of these contained the word 'you' in some form or other. They taught me to take responsibility for my actions and deal with the consequences when I made choices which weren't smart.
But this is 2011 where personal injury is an industry. Our sense of self preservation seems to have withered just as our ability to lay blame on someone or something else has grown. Here in Utah I'm amazed at the things people blame, the weather, the pavement, the barbed wire fence they were trying to climb over, snow, hot coffee, the list goes on and I won't bore you with more stuff you can blame. Of course there are acts of god, like lightening strikes, no one has yet tried to sue God (if there is one and that's a topic for another day) and some things come out of the blue which no amount of forward planning could stop but most events are the culmination of a series of small events that altogether cause a problem.
I witnessed an example just a couple of days ago. We were driving out of a busy car park, not going very fast because it's pretty much impossible with all the cars bumbling around looking for the space closest to the store they want to go into. So we get to the exit which opens onto Highland Drive and this bunch of six or seven people are wandering along - to the side of the path of our car, when one of them just wanders across in front of us, never even looked behind him, we weren't going very fast and sat stopped while he meandered around. We couldn't move until he was out of the way and my husband - who doesn't list patience as one of his virtues - honked the horn to get him out of the way. The response was immediate, that horn is loud and it certainly got his attention but what he did next was mind numbing, he got angry and slapped the back of hubby's car and shouted something with dude in it - he wasn't surfer dude material. Of course my husband doesn't like anyone touching his pride and joy let alone slapping it so he stops and the bloke starts shouting that we almost ran him down - we shouldn't have been going so fast. Our speed at the time zero miles per hour. See there you have it, rather than look stupid or - god forbid - apologize for wandering into traffic he gets angry and blames someone else for his stupidity.
One other example I can think of is the woman who was so busy texting that she walked right into the fountain. She of course now has a lawyer and I'm guessing they'll have to take the fountains out after she gets a massive pay out - for being an idiot.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8268547/Dangers-of-texting-while-walking-woman-falls-into-fountain.html
But this is 2011 where personal injury is an industry. Our sense of self preservation seems to have withered just as our ability to lay blame on someone or something else has grown. Here in Utah I'm amazed at the things people blame, the weather, the pavement, the barbed wire fence they were trying to climb over, snow, hot coffee, the list goes on and I won't bore you with more stuff you can blame. Of course there are acts of god, like lightening strikes, no one has yet tried to sue God (if there is one and that's a topic for another day) and some things come out of the blue which no amount of forward planning could stop but most events are the culmination of a series of small events that altogether cause a problem.
I witnessed an example just a couple of days ago. We were driving out of a busy car park, not going very fast because it's pretty much impossible with all the cars bumbling around looking for the space closest to the store they want to go into. So we get to the exit which opens onto Highland Drive and this bunch of six or seven people are wandering along - to the side of the path of our car, when one of them just wanders across in front of us, never even looked behind him, we weren't going very fast and sat stopped while he meandered around. We couldn't move until he was out of the way and my husband - who doesn't list patience as one of his virtues - honked the horn to get him out of the way. The response was immediate, that horn is loud and it certainly got his attention but what he did next was mind numbing, he got angry and slapped the back of hubby's car and shouted something with dude in it - he wasn't surfer dude material. Of course my husband doesn't like anyone touching his pride and joy let alone slapping it so he stops and the bloke starts shouting that we almost ran him down - we shouldn't have been going so fast. Our speed at the time zero miles per hour. See there you have it, rather than look stupid or - god forbid - apologize for wandering into traffic he gets angry and blames someone else for his stupidity.
One other example I can think of is the woman who was so busy texting that she walked right into the fountain. She of course now has a lawyer and I'm guessing they'll have to take the fountains out after she gets a massive pay out - for being an idiot.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8268547/Dangers-of-texting-while-walking-woman-falls-into-fountain.html
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Who benefits when the clocks go forward (and then back again) ?
Last week - up until Saturday night in fact I was starting to ease into Spring mode - waking up when it is light outside was making my mood as sunny as the skies and then - forward go the clocks and now getting up is a chore again, because I can't see where I'm going and stubbornly refuse to flick on any lights, I run the risk of stubbed toe or a cat/foot connection.
Daylight Savings Time or DST as they call it over here is something my generation grew up with but it wasn't always like this. If you look back far enough you find that DST was introduced as a cost cutting measure during WW1 and dropped not long after the war ended. If you ask most people they'll tell you that it's good for the farmers (actually they hate DST) Some will quote safety reasons but whereas the kids at the school two blocks over could see where they were going last week, this week you could argue they are less visible to our crazy Utah drivers and therefore far less safe. At the other end of the scale we are supposed to be able to stay out later in the evening. At the moment it's too cold and gloomy to do that.
Oh and that extra hour of daylight plays havoc with your natural circadian cycle. Your body is programmed to wake when it's light and go to sleep when it's dark. I'm tempted to just say screw it and leave my clocks the way they are but like the rest of the sheep I did what I was told and changed them all - except the one in my car.
So again I ask myself who benefits from this?
Your local electricity company - that's who.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/daylightsaving.html
http://www.standardtime.com/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/110313-daylight-savings-time-2011-what-time-is-it-spring-forward-nation/
http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/info/daylightsaving.htm
Daylight Savings Time or DST as they call it over here is something my generation grew up with but it wasn't always like this. If you look back far enough you find that DST was introduced as a cost cutting measure during WW1 and dropped not long after the war ended. If you ask most people they'll tell you that it's good for the farmers (actually they hate DST) Some will quote safety reasons but whereas the kids at the school two blocks over could see where they were going last week, this week you could argue they are less visible to our crazy Utah drivers and therefore far less safe. At the other end of the scale we are supposed to be able to stay out later in the evening. At the moment it's too cold and gloomy to do that.
Oh and that extra hour of daylight plays havoc with your natural circadian cycle. Your body is programmed to wake when it's light and go to sleep when it's dark. I'm tempted to just say screw it and leave my clocks the way they are but like the rest of the sheep I did what I was told and changed them all - except the one in my car.
So again I ask myself who benefits from this?
Your local electricity company - that's who.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/daylightsaving.html
http://www.standardtime.com/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/110313-daylight-savings-time-2011-what-time-is-it-spring-forward-nation/
http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/info/daylightsaving.htm
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