Found on Facebook

When I read John Hersey's 'Hiroshima' in college, this is what horrified me more than any other immediate consequence of the bomb.

Nor should we forget

an event that meant the death of some 140,000 people--mostly civilians, and had far-reaching consequences for both the survivors and for our world in general: Japan marks anniversary of atomic attack on Hiroshima

Worries and hopes regarding the dangers of radiation in Japan

Hiroshima survivors fear new nuclear fallout

The cities flattened by last week's earthquake look eerily similar to the decimated buildings Shigeko Sasamori saw after an atomic bomb was dropped on her hometown in 1945.

The floodwaters from the tsunami -- the waves of debris and bodies -- remind her of the rivers in Hiroshima, Japan, swamped with corpses.

And the struggle to contain radioactive emissions at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant makes Sasamori, 78, wonder if the crisis there will plague a new generation in Japan.

"Radiation is the most horrible thing, and it's more horrible to me because humans make it," she said from her home near Los Angeles. "We don't have to make that."

Sasamori is a hibakusha, or heat radiation survivor -- a name given to those who lived through the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States at the end of World War II.

For them, radiation is an invisible enemy that has haunted them, claimed their loved ones, altered their bodies and threatened their lives.

Imagine

Japanese man is a double A-bomb survivor: He was in Hiroshima on business trip before returning home to Nagasaki

My double radiation exposure is now an official government record. It can tell the younger generation the horrifying history of the atomic bombings even after I die.--Tsutomu Yamaguchi, 93

For a short look at the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the following MSNBC video does a decent job, although I would really recommend John Hersey's book, Hiroshima, a classic, for an in-depth account. For children, the story of Sadako Sasaki in Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes may be useful. It is certainly moving.

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A strange video on my RSS feeds

via Steven on Library Stuff

Nina Persson (of the Swedish band The Cardigans) & husband Nathan Larson - Losing My Religion


An excellent cover of R.E.M's classic, set to a video of images related to atomic bombs and 'duck and cover' videos. Steven's right, it's an eerie combination. Well, I've eaten; it's time to go to sleep now. Good night.