Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00

Subject: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 05:06 PM

POEM AFTER A MEETING TO DISCUSS
THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL

"There are of course technical problems, but not insurmountable, really. It is getting people to think rationally about nuclear issues that is the big obstacle, and we haven't found the solution to that yet."
- Nuclear industry spokesperson, Oct 1, 00

Guinevere shaking in grief on the convent floor,
Blood aflame for her two lost men:
Lancelot's great limbs smashed forever,
Arthur's regal eyes degraded into emptiness --
And the other losses, the endless losses -- The court alive with love,
The favours everywhere bestowed,
The heart on the sleeve, the heart in the mouth,
The tourneys in the high sun like an oriflamme,
Beautiful men playing beautifully at death,
And all about the Table Round, lutes and roses.

And then the Grail descended
suspended over the Table the voices
And in the incandescent ecstasy the circle
dissolves into desire --
Parsifal, the fool,
Galahad, full of himself in the mirror of metal,
Gawain -- all the expected ones, but also
Lance, her Lance --
To set out somewhere other than her heart
For his holy grail....
Guinevere curls up on the convent floor
Like a fly fallen on a hot stove.

"My Lord, let us seek out this Grail
Throughout the world, for if we but had
the cup that held the blood of Christ, then ---"

Then? in the end Arthur dead,
Lancelot stricken,
and as the days darken round,
Guinevere
weeps her days away in a wild waste land
where no birds sing;
And no arm rises from no lake,
clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
To draw the poison down.
-pt.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 05:23 PM

So then I guess ya' got some problems whith that new clear fishin' stuff huh PT?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 05:34 PM

The allusion is lost on me -- what stuff? (I don't know anything about fishing). yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: sophocleese
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 05:55 PM

It appears with catspaw that sounding out is necessary when he plumbs the depths. So try reading it aloud.

PS. I'm still reading the poem.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 06:08 PM

Thanks sophocleese, I was being obtuse. yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 06:41 PM

Its all right Soph.....I had a cute thing and PT was obtuse.......THERE!!! I believe that has all the angles covered.............

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Micca
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 07:13 PM

Spaw, ya sure it wasnt just a reflex??

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 07:38 PM

Oh, Peter, you are such a Master of imagery! I really love your poem; it is stunning. Thanks.

kat

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Dave Swan
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 09:27 PM

That's really a lovely piece of work , Peter. Thanks.

Dave

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Metchosin
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 11:03 PM

or perhaps Spaw's inclination is a bleak attempt at humour? but I think the point is vanishing.....

Very powerful Peter, thank you.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: p.j.
Date: 02 Oct 00 - 11:07 PM

"...beautiful men playing beautifully at death..."

"...to set out somwhere other than her heart..."

pt, what would we do without you?

pj

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: sophocleese
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 08:23 AM

Spaw, I should have realized when you mentioned fishin that you were a compleat angler. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Bert
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 11:31 AM

Grrrr, as someone who used to work on the design of nuclear power stations I kinda resent this thread.

Some questions you might answer to put things in perspective.

How many people die each year from bronchial troubles caused by pollution from conventional power stations? (It was 30,000 in England alone in the mid sixties)
How many trees are killed each year from pollution caused by acid rain from conventional power stations? Ask any Canadian.
Do we need trees to live?
What does happens to animals who live in the area inundated by a hydro lake? How many beetles, lizards turtles and so forth are left to drown? Of course that's NOT pollution, or is it?
Even with Chernobyl and Three Mile Island the scales are still heavily tipped against conventional power stations. (I didn't work on the design of either of those, in case you were wondering)
Nuclear power may not be the great thing that it was intended to be, but as an interim measure for ridding the earth of conventional power stations it may be the only thing that can save us.

Bert.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Peg
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 12:42 PM

gorgeous poem, Peter T. I think the editors of the Year's Best Horror and Fantasy anthology (a work of integrity and immens, diverse talent) would happily publish this; has it seen print yet? They often publish poetry which deals with mythology...

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 12:53 PM

It hasn't been published yet -- it was written yesterday!
bert, the poem was about the continuing arrogance of the technologists and the refusal to think about the long legacy of the waste products. We could agree to disagree about the rest....

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Metchosin
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 01:11 PM

as much as I can appreciate your perspective bert, to some, it would be like hiring Ted Bundy as the gardener at a girls private school because we have had assurances he is no longer a risk.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Bert
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 01:28 PM

Well, I used to be one of those technologists. I spent a great deal of time and thought about the safety issues of the parts I was designing and NONE of them failed. I wasn't arrogant, I knew what I was doing and I made sure that my designs were the best that I could do. So I still go - Grrrr.

I will agree with you that disposal is a problem. At least the nuclear industry strives not to emulate the conventional power station industry. Their method is 'let it all go up the chimney and if anyone complains, build a taller stack' (so's it can blow all the way up to Canada).

Let's use the same standards for everyone. ZERO POLLUTION (I think we can agree on that one). Whether it's smoke or radiation or heat or water. It's unrealistic and unfair to allow widespread distribution of ash throughout the world and jump all over the nuclear industry for DISCUSSING waste disposal.

As the guy said "It is getting people to think rationally about nuclear issues that is the big obstacle"

If the nuclear industry could commandeer an area as large as just one of your hydro lakes then they could contain all of their waste products safely.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Bert
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 01:30 PM

And Metch'. I'm no Ted Bundy.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: flattop
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 06:41 PM

I can be thick. I'll admit it. I read the poem aloud five times before finally asking someone far more intelligent than I am to explain the joke.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: flattop
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 06:44 PM

Bert, I believe I heard Nader say that nuclear waste would be poisonous to humans and animals 250,000 years after it came out of a reactor. Is this your understanding of the material that you were engineering around? If so, do you have a model of the human race that would account for handling waste for more than 250,000 years? If you put a sign on a pile saying, 'Don't touch this shit!' do you think anyone would even be able to read the language after 250,000 years?

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Metchosin
Date: 03 Oct 00 - 07:38 PM

Oh bert, I am so sorry, I never meant that to sound as if I considered that you were a Ted Bundy. I should have realized that by your defense of the nuclear industry and by association, my acerbic comment could prove hurtful, very thoughtless, please forgive me.

I intended the analogy to mean that the nuclear industry, in general, does have a mighty uphill battle in its effort to reassure the public, considering the power to destroy and poison it has unleashed in the past and is capable of releasing for millenniums to come. It boggles my mind how the industry would feel given this, that the public could "rationally" think otherwise. The Titanic was built on such assurances, to what was considered the highest standards of of technology for the time

IMHO our present day technologies may be more advanced, but our ability to foresee all contingencies and damaging repercussions, as well as our propensity for human error, remains the same. And to me, this has been further demonstrated by other widely used power generating technologies.

Susanwhoworkedinfieldsofoutgassingdimethyl-dimethyl-propenedespitereadingsilentspring.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Bert
Date: 04 Oct 00 - 11:41 AM

Well thank you Susan, of course you are forgiven - You're a true Mudcatter.

You are right about the uphill battle. If you look at the first message you will see that the original topic was '...A MEETING TO DISCUSS THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR WASTE DISPOSAL'. If we can't even DISCUSS the problems without people jumping all over us, then as flattop says the problem WILL stay with us for 250,000 years.

and flattop, the people that die every year from pollution from conventional power stations - are dead FOREVER.

Bert.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 06:31 PM

No they aren't. They reincarnate. :-)

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Oct 2, 00
From: Peter T.
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 06:48 PM

gone fission, you mean.
yours, Peter T.