The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,900 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 8,600 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
(You have no idea how hard I work to keep my mouth shut on this site.)
In this experience we call human life, which is a misinterpretation of what is still essentially animal life; I believe that each of us has the inalienable right to find comfort where he/she can find it. In part, that’s part of the mission of this site; to be a Sacred Space where participants can find comfort from childhoods of great pain.
“Life is suffering” sayeth the Buddha.
What Buddha missed was, “and the avoidance thereof”. But then again, since such avoidance is but another form of suffering, he explained life perfectly. Only fools like me would think he may have missed something!
There is no greater truth about life and there are such incredible varieties of sufferings to choose from that what you consider the deepest of agonies could be eternal orgasmic ecstasy to another. Go figure!
But life is also transcending suffering by thought or deed or intent. And yes, for far too many, life means enduring it like a Purgatory that never ends and legions succumb to the suffering by manufacturing more of it for themselves, without getting help from circumstances or anyone else. They become suffering. In that way, do they embody life?
Let’s leave that debate to those with the patience of Mother Teresa.
We’re here to look at the varieties of experience that have been helpful to our participants. My way of contributing is to just play with ideas and concepts as they come up, and share a little of what I’m learning about myself as I do. So let’s explore the idea of comfort a bit further.
Someone on this site mentioned a number of times that attending Sunday Catholic Mass had become routine. Now the suffering avoided (in my opinion) had more to do with relationship with spouse. On this site, can you imagine ANYONE turning to the very Church that abused them for comfort from those wounds for any reason?
I don’t care about why, where or how the comfort was derived; it made life a little more endurable for that person until it was time to abandon the practice.
Who amongst us has not paid for a dollop of comfort with a dash of hypocrisy?
Look at me. This is my first announcement of this but guess what amigos? I moved out of the United States to a Catholic country. I’ve chosen to move my life to a place where the center of most of the populace’s week revolves around Catholicism.
Every morn at 6:00 a.m., sometimes earlier, I’m awakened by the pealing of Church bells from each side of town (we have two churches), and that’s just the first time for each day. I don’t really tune them out, they are a part of my life; a part of the order and consistency of things without my really paying much mind to them. But my guess is they call the people to prayer here as often in a day as Muslims bow to Mecca.
In fact, one of the most important grounding things I did upon moving here was to make sure my first Sunday here I went to Mass; to share my prayers of thanks with the people who are hosting this grand adventure. Naturally, you go to where they go to pray.
The Catholic Church is something I haven’t done since I don’t remember when, maybe 1990.
Talk about suffering! This is Old School Catholicism. The benches to kneel on were slabs of wood, and the people attending, 90% indigenous, were dirt poor and really didn’t need any reminders of servitude. But I wasn’t there to judge or even examine, I was there to pray my prayers and let them bounce off all the 19th Century walls with everyone else’s.
And, naturally, I took my place center pew with the best view of the gold-gilded altar I could find and within minutes, a bunch of nuns came in and surrounded me.
I had a choice; the nuns could have been gifts or scourges from God (or Jesus for that matter). I’ve come a long road and my choice was to see the wink of God in the whole deal, acknowledge it and even get much joy from the encounter because what I was told was “You’re free to do whatever you want with this experience.”
In 1990 I might have tried to trip one of them up and knock the others about like penguin bowling pins but this day, I chose to feel deep gratitude to be in that moment of time, exactly where I was. Amidst the nuns, I felt comfort.
And now, I’m paying attention to how the Catholic Church expresses itself down here and you know what I’m hearing? A surprising number of stories of clergy going to bat for the poor and sacrificing; can you imagine that? But I’m not here to investigate the Church, or even to think of it much beyond this piece.
I find comfort in knowing any time I want (literally as many times in a week as I want), I can be in the presence of local people who seek comfort and guidance from Spirit. Let’s put it this way, there are two centers of town and both are churches, NOT banks. Just being around people with that intent and focus, no matter the form, enriches my own ability to connect with my own Source. I only care about one denomination; mine and there are many vehicles that help me to know it better!
Underneath all our horror stories lay wonderful stories of hope and guidance. They take on so many personally powerful shapes and forms that you can’t help but sense that many forms of custom-designed support are available from other than the physical realm if you just seek them.
What’s important here? What’s most important is to grow to understand (yes, no matter how painful) the difference between the abuse, the abuser, the system that supported the abuser, the core values that were violated, what you caused and what you were victim of. Only then can you attain a sense of self in relation to your past traumas that will allow you to move more fluidly through your present-day life.
Essentially, we’re not responsible for the abuse, but we ARE responsible for our recovery. And by extension, what we do with the lessons learned and never forget; how we can choose to help others lessen their own burdens.
Of course, there’s another aspect of our personal responsibility in the matter. If we were not at all responsible for the abuse itself as it originated, we are certainly responsible for what we do with it to harm ourselves and others. To even realize that this happens is a major part of the recovery process.
In general terms…regarding this site…I really don’t mind people sharing what gives them comfort, almost no matter what it is and as long as that comfort does not harm others or involve the conversion of others to that way of thinking. My job is to make sure there are limits and boundaries. Much to everyone’s credit, I’ve rarely had to exercise my authority.
My point is it’s important for us here to be able to see ALL SORTS of options to aid in our own recovery; maybe ESPECIALLY if it means reading of someone’s way of coping and declaring “NO! That WON’T work for me.”
We have come from childhoods where our options were severely limited. We have come here to witness how our peers have unburied themselves so that maybe we can find such shovels and pickaxes and helpful workers in our own lives.
Welcome to the storeroom. Rummage through what you see and take what works for you and, please, allow your peers to find the comfort they can from what works best for them, regardless of your ability to approve or understand it.
Nowwe’ve got some numbers going folks…
Irish Church apologies for the abuse of 10,000 girls a the hands of nuns!
If this doesn’t prove our point when we say the vast amount of NUMBERS of children abused by nuns eclipses that done by priests, I don’t know what will!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 7,900 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 13 years to get that many views.
The last time I added to our archives I had to do a lot of searching to find articles on this disaster, but check this out; GOOGLE “nun abuse children”. A whole lot more people are talking. I’m adding these to our archive, but I just wanted some of these articles to be readily available for all to see.
Our Army is Growing!
Abuse by Women Religious (nuns and sisters) from SNAP
http://www.snapnetwork.org/nun_abuse
Catholic nuns also abused children
http://vorige.nrc.nl/international/article2530647.ece
Lawsuit accuses Montana Nuns of child abuse
http://www.nativetimes.com/news/crime/6093-new-lawsuit-accuses-mont-nuns-of-abusing-children
Roman Catholic Nuns torture & abuse children at Orphanages VIMEO video
Nuns among worst perpetrators of horrific violence and sex abuse in Jesuit-run schools and missions on Indian reservations
http://religiouschildabuse.blogspot.com/2011/06/nuns-among-worst-perpetrators-of.html
Sexual abuse by nuns may be last taboo (Ann Free Spirit has many entries regarding this!)
http://annfreespirit.over-blog.com/article-sexual-abuse-by-nuns-may-be-last-taboo-98290558.html
I told a lie and the nun beat me repeatedly with scissors’: Child abuse victim reveals his horror past
Catholic Nuns sexually abused children as much as priests (Video)
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0809/648351_video.html?ref=newsstory
Victims of Nun’s Sex Abuse Need Our Compassion, Too
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/06/1097871/-Victims-of-Nun-s-Sex-Abuse-Need-Our-Compassion-Too
Nun abuse case held up by kids
http://www.thenewage.co.za/37446-1010-53-Nun_abuse_case_held_up_by_kids
Vatican’s worst enemy can’t be stopped
http://www.vaticancrimes.us/2011/12/20000-children-abused-by-catholic.html
Nuncrimes at Blogspot http://www.nuncrimes.blogspot.com/
Back in May of 2009, I got pissed off and wrote an entry on my “a firetender’s blog” entitled Catholic Nuns, Child Abuse and Vows!
People were listening!
Of about 508 posts total, the number of posters has been (about — I counted this by hand as a kind of “honoring” thing) … wait a minute,
I’m going to make you work for this so you can see just how many people to whom this thread is important!
Here are the people who have made this site a living entity! Give ’em a hand (and they’ll give you one; that’s how this site works!)!!!!
START SCROLLING!
caitfinnegan
mark
brian
susanne
pattyann
gary allen
maura hart
c.villanueva
jp
ruth
b.robertson
tamar
kristen
mark s
mario
gern
richard
nancy kimble
dana
colleen
laurie
maureen
christina
shelley
mary rutley
martin
frank
monica
linda
emme
nick
brian f
tea
frank
fran
jane
cat
christine v
christine f
the germanator
angry mom
debbie
cindy l
dora
juna
george
robert g
jack w
nancy k
tom
tomal
florence
harry
carmen
henry
sue r
tony z
verite
tim
rich t
dennis g
trish g
don
joanne
don
rich
marie c
mary a
vincent
rjgodley
ihmscadet
larry
mariol
joey n
lori g
noele
laurance v
andre h
eunece
micahe
michael j
dawyne
rocco
maureen g
dennis
thecentralscrutinizer
sam
gratefulandthankful
patrick paul
richie
mary ellen
john s
mcccmarr
That’s 94 different stories including mine, with some from Australia, Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, in the South Americas and other countries I might have missed! This is a worldwide outrage, as we know.
Something I must acknowledge is that my original post was meant to emphasize the incredible discrepancy that happened in violence against young male students vs. our female counterparts.
What an incredible awakening this was for me; fully half of the participants here are women, affirming the unbelievable violence to EVERYONE, that very much included their lifetime horror at having been WITNESS to the abuse of their Brothers! Maybe the girls DID catch it as badly, regardless, we all shared the pain.
There is a huge healing there for me; I always thought they were laughing! Not because I saw them do so, but because my humiliation was meant FOR them to see.
I keep expecting this site to get me in trouble, after all, I’m “going after” the Catholic Church, aren’t I?
In reality, as I keep attempting to make perfectly clear, this is not a movement, it is a safe haven. Let others do the moving! The best I can, and want! to do is to work on being there and monitor a sacred space for others to come to.
I’d love someone or someones to show up and use our stories to — for now, honestly I’d be more than happy to just have — make this an issue as prominent as the Predator Priests thing. During those vulnerable years of the 1940s-1970s, Priests were grossly outNUNbered and the nun’s influence was far more widespread.
I believe the variety of their sicknesses were, as well.
I don’t hold back on my personal opinions and I want it to remain clear that these ARE my personal opinions, and are not meant to substitute for professional counseling, or medical or legal advice and in no way, shape or form reflect the opinions of any person or organization with whom I am associated.
In fact I give myself permission to let my anger and bile flow vividly here because there are many thousands out there who were taught (as I was) to stuff it. “Anger is not Godlike!” we were told; some of us while being beaten.
The truth is, my anger and outrage at my abuse at the hands of Catholic nuns that began more than fifty years ago is the greatest gift that God ever gave me and the foundation of what has grown into compassion!
Nope! I don’t forgive the wretched souls, that’s not MY job. The best I can do is forgive ME for all the “S-turns” I had to take to get here. But here is okay, really and you want to know why?
Through it all, I’ve not become them.
I could NEVER willfully inflict the pain on them that they inflicted on me. I would never choose to go back to THEIR childhoods and torture them in the ways I was, precisely because I KNOW what it feel like to have your soul shredded; they taught me!
The difference between me and them is this: I am convinced every one of these violent nuns were abused themselves as children and probably in horrific ways even I can’t imagine! If they recalled their own pasts at all, it was so they could act out what was done to them. They chose to forget what shit like that does to you.
I DIDN’T forget what that felt like, so I’ll stand in the way of anyone trying to abuse the innocent. Maybe here what I’m doing is showing my compadres/madres that we don’t have to beat OURSELVES up anymore. We’re STILL (metaphorically) innocents!
Me and everything I am is here because of my anger and compassion; they have saved me!
I just so want to honor each and every one of you for having taken the time (and in many cases opened up old wounds!) to show up and share. I know what a challenge it must have been, because I did it too!
And the way that so many of you really, REALLY work with each other to help each other get through traumatic memories or “Why’s?” and “What Next’s?” really blows my mind!
You’ve ALL made this one simple blog-entry worth coming home to again and again!
I won’t make any guesses as to what the future may bring. As I’ve said in the past, I’m not here to become a politician, lawyer or priest for that matter to fight the windmill called the Catholic Church.
I’m here to maintain a space where the ripped-off can come for some conversation and compensation!
Yes, the compensation on this site is finding others like yourselves who are building solid lives for themselves DESPITE the trauma they experienced. If this site does no more than provide a place for people abused by the nuns of the Catholic Church to see that what they went through was REAL, then it’s doing its job!
So keep supporting each other, telling your stories and facing what happened so we all can keep turning this shit into diamonds!
I have to cop to a certain amount of trepedation about so visibly expressing my rancor at the incredibly twisted Catholic Church. I mean, in everything else in my internet presence, I am Russ Reina, a firetender whose oft repeated mantra is that I am here to nurture the flames of Spirit that live in me and all things.
(Something like that anyhow. You may have noticed I tend to say the same damn thing over and over again but just in 50,000 different ways! Nobody listens anyhow so I may as well keep working on the words until they really CLICK!)
And here, in what I reserved as a personal blog of my personal musings I am so damn stuck in my outrage of the Church! For all you see, this is all of who I am. It’s not, it’s the part whose soul got ripped free of its innocense.
Just to get this out of the way, what I REALLY should be doing is trying to sell my book. Let http://www.russreina.com speak for me on that.
But, honestly, just like I’ve encouraged others to vent, I will take my own medicine and have at it. Since I never attained a place on anyone’s pedestal there’s nothing to fall off of is there? And for the record, this never was about gaining publicity; I’m just mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!
And you have no idea how deep is the love I have for all of my Contributors because they’re all screaming out the windows as well!
What got me here was a post by Mario on this site. In part, he said…
…I was just being a jokester about that. I know he was supposed to appear in Jerusalem (2nd Coming; firetender’s note). This does give me an idea though glad you bought (sic) that up. I can go there to sell, Jesus balloons to the kids and hamburgs and hot dogs. Just think, I may be able to perform a miracle by feeding 5,000 people from two hot dogs and a bag of rolls. You’ll probably catch it on the six O’clock news. All the Christians that will be their waiting for his arrival.It’s a good time to make a few bucks. Might as well take advantage of the occasion.
On first blush I’d have to say that’s pretty damn miserable, Mario! Look at what you’re doing; you’re suggesting that, based on inspiration you received from this tender, sensitive blog that you can justify yourself going out and ripping off a bunch of devout Christians!
That, my Contributor is DEPLORABLE!
You can do better; For Chrissakes learn from the EXPERTS!
First of all, your project is labor intensive.
The balloon thing is a pretty good idea; cheap, the images are public domain, and they are innocuous giveaways for the kids. I’m cool with that, but remember, you will have to blow the damn things up or spend 90% of your time helping the little buggers to do so on their own!!
And, really, do you think it’ll be easy to turn two hot dogs and a bag of rolls into enough to feed 5,000 without an expensive set of smoke and mirrors? You ever watch a bunch of Christians at a Las Vegas free buffet?
(Please consider pork hot dogs if you do this; it’ll keep away Jew and Arab non-believers.)
You could do what Jesus did which was (arguably) ascend to Heaven for around 75 years until a good publicist showed up (Paul) who then spread the, um, slightly exagerrated story like wildfire.
But you know what, Mario? I don’t think you have the patience, and to be in your corner, neither do I!
So let’s get weird here, Okay?
1) Let’s you and me make up a wax dummy of Pope John Paul II; the guy who they just rushed through canonization as a Saint quicker than Crazy Glue sets.
2) Let’s figure out which country eats up the Pope being God’s direct representative on earth, hook, line and sinker as evidenced by his reception there when he was alive; preferably, let’s say, a country in turmoil, where innocent people are getting murdered by thugs and the people need to hold on to that old “reward in the afterlife” thing.
3) Let’s parade around the streets, letting the faithful touch the bulletproof glass sarcopagus with their whatchamacallums…oh yeah Scapulas and, of course, Rosary Beads, hell, even panties, why do anything to discourage expressions of faith?! I think they think that’ll knock off some time in Purgatory if I remember correctly. That’s what I was taught, anyway.
(Wait a minute, something is missing….Okay, got it!)
4) Make sure, with that wax figure you’ve got some bones or something from the real body of the pope. Wait, that’s too gross. Maybe a tooth or two that didn’t make it to the Tooth Fairy. Nah, in order for that to work the wax figure will have to visibly have the teeth in question absent; it’s a credibilty thing.
5) SCRATCH 4) I got it! How about having with it a vial of the dead Pope’s BLOOD. Say it was taken from him just before he died, for some reason that has ZING! appeal to me.
6) And here’s the beautiful part; you don’t even have to ask for the cash. It will be thrown into any box labeled, “Help us take our Vicar to the next town!”
Here’s where this firetender guy is truly out of his mind, isn’t he? Clearly, he deserves to lose what little credibility he had. I mean, what does he think; people from the impoverished ghettos will flock to the display and part with the spare Pesos they need to feed their children so the Church can continue to parade around with what used to be called a “graven image”?
SOMEBODY THINKS SO! And I’m sorry, Mario, in the time it took me to write this (I Googled, of course, to make sure I wasn’t stomping on anyone’s Copyright!) I found they beat us to the punch!
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/25/2374691/pope-john-paul-iis-relics-displayed.html
For once, this firetender doesn’t know what else to say.
I think it’s fair to say that we, who have been Spiritually abused, have, at one time or another, questioned the existence of god or the justice of ANY God. In my world, moments like these were fueled by outrage at the ripping away of my innocence. “How could I be so stupid as to entrust my fate to a god with such twisted sisters?!”
HE is their reflection, is He not?
How could I or you or anyone of us NOT be immersed in rage at some point? Note, I keep stressing that such things are in the moment. As with all emotions it is up to our choice how long we occupy any one of them.
Clinging to them can be debilitating as me and many of my peers have experienced, but sometimes, that’s what happens.
So when someone here expresses an “Off with their heads!!” toward God, his/her minions or their philosophies no matter how expressed, I can hear it. In fact, I want to hear it precisely because no one else did!
You’re right when you say ALL Extremists should be banned from having contact with our children — I have said it myself — but then I want you to listen to each other as well and hear that that puts you into the realm of Extremism.
An eye for an eye makes everyone blind.
And please, don’t forget that there ARE many of us who, through whatever means DID, in our childhoods, connect honestly and truly with the Central Force that our teachers abused. THAT connection has sustained our lives.
Take me, for example. Somehow, through singing, I established a visceral connection with the best of what I was taught Jesus was about. That initial absorption by me, by some magical entrance, helped me to distinguish between the good that came from that Source and the evil of what was made up by twisted minds and heaped on me and my classmates.
I abandoned it all after Grammar School and went about a perhaps 10 year quest to UN-learn everything I had been taught in Catholic School. That meant tossing out the baby with the bathwater. I had to, otherwise I never could have had room to let fresh water in to nourish something new. No matter how I looked at it, that baby was presented me as a burden, not a gift.
Sorry, but THAT baby had to die for me to live. I couldn’t really see at the time that what I was really doing was spinning a cocoon around it until it entered its appropriate stage of development and I had room to let it live inside me again.
Somehow, I REALLY got a tremendous amount of comfort from that — enough to have the strength to question and abandon it!
And there were MANY times I found myself railing at, protesting against and defiling everybody else’s gods who reminded me of the one who became the vehicle of my Spirit’s abuse. I had to work hard and fast to NOT allow those voices to dominate my life because that would place my focus on THEIR gods rather than cultivating my own.
Why?
Because what I found was that being godless just doesn’t work for me!
The connection is the Connection and that never changes; if I listen, through it I gain a little wisdom. Maybe it’s that damned simple, but you know what? Those little pieces of wisdom that seem to come from outside of myself are often…just…enough…to keep me wanting to live and continue to contribute.
I’ve learned to do what I’m told, but I know Who’s REALLY asking now!
Now that may be a far cry from the kind of fealty to Jesus that was beaten into me. But you know what? It’s enough!
So, what I’ve learned is that God has many faces. They are fluid and often times you have to really work hard and sacrifice a lot to get to see the one that you need right now. But they are there to choose from.
There’s that word again; CHOICE!
So, yes, I have a request here, as well. I want to hear the pain and I want to hear the reactions AND I want to hear the coming togethers as well in understanding and tolerance for each other. Out of that comes mutual growth.
Holding on to positions, or being subject to being held TO immutable positions is what got us to this site in the first place!
So let us be gods FOR each other. Let us find the places where we can hear the children in us crying out in pain and then extend hands to sooth it.
Remember, a big part of this Blog’s purpose is to be a vehicle for us to help each other move forward and my hope is ON so that the damage no longer lives inside of us.
This is not about revenge; it’s about self-restitution using mirrors.
And you know what? You ALL are doing a wonderful job!
I suppose I’d still like this Blog to attract somebody(s) to nail the Catholic Church on this, the underlying iceberg of its true abuse. But honestly, I’ll really “settle” for a bunch of us to see each other, help each other find perspective and hope, and then carry a living Jesus out to others, whatever form that may take.
Please allow me to take a Simpleton’s exploration: It’s all about damage control and a sort of triage of information made available to the people that essentially, like triage in the field, will define who is saved.
Lots of people may very well die in Japan, no matter what choices are made by the major players. The initial disasterS are one thing, but the preservation of those who survived (throughout the remainder of the country) is going to involve a lot of very tough choices. If things get worse, a whole lot of people will need to get moved. Who and when?
The triage question of the day, and very much having to do with scene safety is do they move them now, or wait until things get worse?
Because it is highly likely a hell of a lot of people are going to need to be moved (and FAST!) and the ones left to turn out the lights on the way out may very well die if the timing is wrong.
But under these circumstances how could any choice made by public officials be deemed wrong? Yet, it’s going to be hard to find winners in this mess.
Sure, I’m presenting a worst-case scenario. It’s dreamed up by someone completely unqualified by your standards, I’d guess, but I wonder if perhaps you can see what I see?
I see a natural disaster with, literally, a number of fatal beachheads; the earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear crisis. Right now, from Ground Zero south to Tokyo uncertainty reigns.
Or does it? Perhaps the populace is not perceiving the threat as I am.
I’m hard pressed to find decent reports that contrast what information we are gathering against what the people in Tokyo are hearing. The general Japanese populace probably understands as much about true nuclear radiation threat as ours does. And that’s even considering they have been far more intimate with its effects than ourselves. Unfortunately, it’s not much.
For some reason, if they know about the danger of one or more of the nuclear complexes melting down, they have been convinced it’s under control and they are not to worry; otherwise they’d be bailing, don’t you think?
But it’s not under control. Not from my vantage point. This is all completely new territory for EVERYONE. Our understanding of nuclear energy has reached its limit. But Boy, are we gonna learn!
We’ve witnessed one big meltdown, Chernobyl, but that was Chernobyl. The circumstances here are completely different. Things got out of hand with Chernobyl and it just kinda blew! And they were able to bury the reactor.
Not so easy in this case because the mitigating circumstances of long-term corrosion due to employing sea water to reduce the temperature means this, too, will be at best a temporary measure.
What’s worse is if it does get worse, we don’t have a clue as to what worse would be. By the grace of God and the Curse of Beelzebub, Japan is on the edge of radioactively poisoning its people, yet, they are sticking to this story, as weak as it is: they may be able to hold it at bay.
But who are we (humanity) kidding? At our best right now we have only guesswork to rely on.
And if reactor #1 goes then how does that affect the rest? Well, for one thing, as one melts down you’re not going to get many people working on its neighbor are you? Let’s get real; this is a juggling act and one of five objects in the air is a running chain saw. Lose that delicate balance and everything gets cut!
Where am I headed?
I lived in Santa Barbara, California. About 150 miles south of me was San Onofre Power Plant, a nuclear facility. That’s as far as the Fukushima plant is from Tokyo. Diablo Canyon was north of me, only about 90 miles. If I knew about a situation looming like exists in Japan today, I would be well out of there, as far away as I could possibly get.
Not so much because of the radiation threat in the moment, but based on the mere possibility that something big COULD happen; well, Sayonara! Why? Because when the 30 + million people in Southern California decided to get moving, I would not want to get trampled. Oddly enough, that’s about Tokyo’s population as well!
Why would I choose to stay somewhere that the water and food cannot be trusted and I must stay inside?
Should the reactor(s) blow, an educated public would be faced with choosing between staying and possibly dying or leaving and having to struggle to survive. The problem is, once a city that size starts to make up its mind, whatever semblance of order is left will be sure to dissolve.
At what point do the Japanese people come to realize that they are waiting for the results of guesswork and many of their lives are literally being held in the balance? Would I want to be the one to say; “We really DON’T know what we’re doing, so maybe Tokyo ought to start packing its bags.”
So the Officials will do nothing to rush anybody. How could I criticize that? I don’t know there’s a whole lot of choice than to wait, see…
…and pray.
a firetender's Blog 