The Fire Next Door

Here is the view from across the salt marshes of the Seabrook Nuclear plant, which is 2 1/2 miles from my house.

Would I have bought my house if I had known it was there?

Probably. Fact is, I wanted to live on the Seacoast and the Seacoast is only 18 miles long from Massachusetts to Maine. The evacuation radius is 10 miles, which means it stretches from inside Massachusetts to Portsmouth at the Piscataqua River, which is the Maine border.

Of course, as one of my neighbors pointed out, what do you think they do at the Portsmouth Naval Yard in Kittery, across the river? They refit nuclear submarines.

Reminds me of the stump speech Frank Magee, Senator from Wyoming, used to give to schoolkids around the Washington, DC area, in the 1960's, about how he thought he ought to get out of Washington, DC and back to Wyoming, to get away from the coming nuclear Armageddon. Then they built an ICBM missile silo a mile from his ranch. There's just no safe place, he said.

On the other hand, the folks at Fukishima are probably wondering why they placed their faith in experts.

We live with more lies than we live with truth in America. Weyhauser, the tree cutting people, have re branded themselves as the tree planting people because they plant little twigs after they clear cut a mountain in Washington State. But if you've ever driven to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State and gazed upon the wasteland, which looks like some post nuclear apocolypse scene, miles of denuded forests and hills, you know that company, which runs the adds on TV with little deer grazing among the trees the company replanted, if you've ever driven around that peninsula, you know what a lie that commercial is and what a lie the whole marketing of that environmentally destructive company is.

But, then again, this is America, where the makers of Fruit Loops can market their cereal as good for your kids because it has high fiber, never mind the sugar and calories. And, looking back over our history, dating back to the railroads, the robber barons of oil and steel, money has been our only truth, our only real religion.

And, in fact, when you look at religion in America, from Pat Robertson to Rick Santori to Glenn Beck, it's all about commerce--love Jesus, love God and you will get something in return. You'll get your prayers answered, you'll get rich, you'll get eternal bliss. How many of these folks or any of their admirers would go to church or pray if they were told, if they knew for sure God would not answer their prayers or reward them?

Jefferson avoided calling himself a Christian. He is now called a Deist, someone who believes in a creator, who set the world into motion but then stood back and watched and does not interfere, certainly in no one individual's benefit.

In the Iliad, the gods intervened all the time. The Greeks wanted to believe there was help from beyond mortal powers. When you feel powerless, the idea of a fatherly, remote but loving protector is very attractive.

And that is the God we have made for ourselves here. The god of commerce, enterprise, ambition and free markets.

And, in fact, there is a sort of behind the scenes sort of interest from the gods in our fate. Big companies take out Dead Peasant insurance policies on their unsuspecting employees, from Walmart to Bank of America, who die and the company collects a million dollar life insurance policy about which the employee (and certainly the employee's family) never had a clue.

But then again, this is America, where big companies lay waste to mountains in West Virginia and to farmers in the heartland and then they sell the fantasy to the people they've raped that these same people who were raped actually enjoyed the experience.