These do not really sound like situations under control...

...at least not to me.


TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese engineers conceded on Friday that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and concrete may be a last resort to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986...

It was the first time the facility operator had acknowledged burying the sprawling complex was possible, a sign that piecemeal actions such as dumping water from military helicopters or scrambling to restart cooling pumps may not work.

***

In other news, somehow the UN Security Council finally got around to agreeing on a no-fly zone over Libya, although it appears it may be too late to prevent Gadhafi from destroying his opposition.

Maybe I'm just in a surly mood, but I'd rather like to see the U.S. and whatever allies it can muster -- France, Britain, maybe some Arab country or another -- go in and bomb Gadhafi's castle to rubble.

I think it is time for him to experience a meltdown; he is a toxic threat to his people as much as radiation is to the Japanese. What good are all these expensive weapons we keep financing with our tax dollars of we can't just take out a creep like him?

I know. I know. Imperialism, the mistakes in Iraq, forcing democracy or our idea of it on others, and so on. Like I said, maybe I'm just in the mood for a fight. Maybe a lot of us are. Maybe we should be. Maybe sometimes you just do what is right and take whatever heat that's necessary, because that is the kind of person you are. Or the kind of people you are.

Or, alternatively, we could all just sit back and continue to watch this all as if it were just another TV show.

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Which Class Dies and Which Survives?

Not to in any way compare the minimal risks North Americans may face from the radioactive cloud that is escaping Japan to that faced by the Japanese people much closer to the nuclear reactors that are spewing toxins into our common atmosphere, nonetheless the following news story released tonight by the New York Times gives one pause:

A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.

If the reports from Japan are accurate, some 180 men, most "older," are being cycled into the danger zone to try and contain how much radiation escapes the six damaged reactors in question.

I suppose the theory that their employer, a Japanese nuclear company with a documented history of lying to the public, is using is that "older men" have less time, theoretically, left to live, so sacrificing their lives is relatively acceptable from a moral perspective.

Of course, none of these older men are executives. They are workers. They are not the men at the top of the company, all of whom are safely ensconced in enclaves far from the scene of disaster.

So it goes. The rich and the powerful and those most responsible for tragedies like this one have the resources to insulate themselves from the immediate effects when disaster strikes.

But over the longer run, if there is any kind of god and any kind of justice, they will be forced to pay for their crimes. This is where journalists come in. We are the ones who do the dirty work exposing the corrupt cowards who inhabit almost every position of leadership in the type of companies that produce energy, including nuclear energy.

Unfortunately, in our time, journalists have been largely removed from the picture. So now all we are left with is the heroic story of 180 older men trying to clean up something they never had any influence over in the first place -- nuclear facilities inadequate to withstand the force of a tsunami that any student of history could easily have predicted would have struck northern Japan sooner or later.

Yes, these 180 men are heroes. Hopefully, their efforts will succeed, and millions more will be safer as a result. But as each and every one of their men die prematurely, who will be there to recognize their sacrifice?

Not the Emperor, not the Prime Minister, not the executives of the corrupt company they worked, and died for.

There will be nobody.

And that, my friend, is not about politics or science or human nature.

That is about class.

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More Bad News From Japan

Update: By Shinichi Saoshiro and Chisa Fujioka Shinichi Saoshiro And Chisa Fujioka –

TOKYO (Reuters) – Workers were ordered to withdraw briefly from a stricken Japanese nuclear power plant on Wednesday after radiation levels surged, Kyodo news reported, a development that suggested the crisis was spiraling out of control.

Just hours earlier another fire broke out at the earthquake-crippled plant, which has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo in the past 24 hours, triggering both fear in the capital and international alarm.

France urged its nationals either to leave Japan or head to the south and asked Air France to provide planes for evacuation. In a statement, the French embassy in Tokyo said two planes were already on their way to the capital.What is going on with the six nuclear reactors that have been damaged by the tsunami following last week's mammoth earthquake?

News reports tonight indicate that the small number of workers authorized to clean up and contain the damage to some of these reactors have been withdrawn by the Japanese government.

This cannot be good news.

The only reason I can think of to remove these workers is that the situation has deteriorated to the point that their lives would be in danger is they stayed on site.

So what does that mean?

Stay tuned. But if you have family or friends anywhere in Japan, it might be time to advise them to leave the country...

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The Japanese Nightmare

It's difficult to concentrate on other matters these days, given the horror in Japan. This is very like the days after Katrina struck the Mississippi coast and flooded New Orleans for many of us; a kind of shock has set in that forces us to spend hours staring at images on TV, images too awful to fully process.

In the wake of this kind of overwhelming disaster, people ask themselves what they might do. Millions of people with little financial margin in their own life send checks of $25 or less in the hope it might make a difference to one of those people in Japan now homeless, hungry, thirsty, hurt, or bereft of the comfort of family and friends who have now gone missing.

My heart goes out especially to those who seek to find their loved ones, because I know that their chances of success, statistically, are zero. Once that awful silence of the departed replaces what they would have found a way -- at any cost -- to do, which of course is to make contact with you, you know deep inside that they are gone.

Part of our DNA has saddled us with denial at times like these. We refuse to accept the worst, even as we know the worst has occurred. Like other intelligent beings -- elephants, whales, dolphins -- we weep and mourn our loss but, perhaps uniquely human, we maintain an unrealistic sense of hope as well.

I've witnessed it over and over, particularly as a reporter forced to talk to people in their moment of greatest pain. I'll never forget their faces, their eyes, their expressions, their ineffable yearning for an alternative outcome.

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Winners Never Do Lose, Actually

After a night where we lost an hour, which made morning come before we were ready for it, we drove out of a city coated with dew, cool, foggy, and soft, like a lovely woman just arising from sleep.

Across the mighty Bay Bridge, buttressed by planks where workers are slowly preparing to replace its damaged eastern span with a replacement rising silently to its north, we entered the vast East Bay.

If you do not know the Bay Area, this is where all the population is. San Francisco is a relatively tiny city anchoring a monstrously huge suburban sprawl to its east and south, with a sparsely populated paradise to its north.

This is a place where cities are built on mountain ranges, so we have numerous tunnels in all directions. As you migrate from the coastal side of the East Bay, past Oakland and Berkeley, you enter an old tunnel called the Caldecott cut out of granite.

Far below the peak you drive through the blackness until you emerge into what to some eyes would be a lovely, hilly, tree-filled valley, and eventually to a town called Concord.

Our road-tripping ended just beyond Concord for today's concluding matches of the Diablo Cup. Our guys got overwhelmed by a superior team, and afterward, at lunch at an Appleby's, I was once again surprised by my son's demeanor.

"I'm proud of our weekend -- two good wins yesterday -- and there was just no way we are able yet to handle a team like we faced today," he said calmly.

In fact, though it may be hard to imagine after an 0-6 loss, he knew he had played very well himself. For the entire second half he was back as the center back, alone in front of his keeper against the onslaught of a much more experienced set of strikers who blasted shot after shot from all angles.

Not a shot got by him in the center, and he both took and dished out some pretty hard hits.

He's stiff tonight -- three tournament games in a weekend, plus a scrimmage Friday night and his second coaching session with the girls. That's a lot of soccer for anybody to manage, even one in peak physical condition, which he is.

***

How can I write or even think about anything but Japan and the suffering endured by those caught in the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters in history. The scars on that country will endure for decades, as will the deep debts the nation incurs as it cleans up and rebuilds after this tragedy.

The fact is they have to go on, and so do we all, no matter what blows we suffer. After lunch, as my player rested in the passenger seat as we made our way back through that valley and the tunnel and the East Bay cities, and the big bridge, and into our home town, I was reflecting once again upon how an excellent sports program prepares a young person for the vicissitudes of life.

I have no idea at this point how far his soccer career will take him, or, of course, whether I will be here to witness it all as it unfolds.

But I do know this:

This kid knows how to win and he knows how to lose and he knows the difference. After a loss that you might expect to have shattered his confidence, nothing of the sort is true.

In fact, he's already looking forward to the next time he gets to take them on.

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