Remembering and Learning From the Horrors of War

Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945. Obviously as a result of two atomic bombs being dropped on them. It was generally believed, and for a few months Americans and their allies could tell themselves that though the bombs had been terrible, they negated the need for an invasion of Japan. This had been scheduled for December 1945, but it meant hundreds of thousands of Allied servicemen would have been killed and wounded. But very soon doubts arose in many quarters.

The first Americans to reach Hiroshima and Nagasaki - servicemen, scientists and journalists - described in great detail the apocalyptic scenes they encountered. They saw a grey, blasted landscape, in which thousands of hideously burnt people were huddled in shanties, coughing up and urinating blood, with their hair falling out in clumps, waiting to die.

The United States Army Air Force published a survey of the effects of strategic bombing on Japan. The Air Force argued that conventional B-29 attacks had all but brought Japan to its knees, and concluded,

' ... it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945 (well before the date of the invasion) Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped.’

The above are excerpts from a BBC report, used to illustrate the need to end all testing, selling, manufacturing and use of any nuclear products. Sixty years and we are barely realizing the need to bring an end to the crazy idea of wars being fought with nuclear weapons.

Now only if we can get the weapons out of the hands of crazed, unstable governments. Unfortunately, western governments have a crazy notion that this instability only exits in the third world. Let's get it straight, I am a little more concerned with the idea of India, Israel, Pakistan, Turkey, North Korea, Iran and China all possessing nuclear weapon capabilities and all have active nuclear weapons programs.

Furthermore, each of these governments have had periods of government instability. With the exception of Iran and North Korea, the world is turning a blind eye towards the potential for a world disaster, all in the name of commerce. It seems the world cares more about selling cars and soda pop to their friends so much, they are willing to ignore the potential atrocities these governments are willing to carry out.

Wake up people, if any of these countries has another period of instability and one of their leaders decides to use a nuclear weapon on their enemies, the 140,000 who died in Japan in 1945 wont be a comparison.

Today, with population densities being what they are, one small nuclear war head detonated in the heart of a city of one million would see more than 500,000 dead and
and another 100,000 injured of which many will eventually die from radiation poisoning.

The only "going nuclear" I'm interested in is watching the Leafs Tie Domi going nuts and giving us a good scrap. Lets put the pressure on our governments, in a peaceful manner, to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Two Year Anniversery of the Big Blackout

On August 14, 2003, the largest power blackout in North American history affected eight U.S.States and the Province of Ontario, leaving up to 50 million people with no electricity.

In a 2004 Natural Resources Canada report some of the major causes leading to the blackout, include inadequate tree-trimming near transmission lines and inadequate training of operators to recognize and cope with emergency conditions.

This was a complete cop out by the Province to blame the workers, considering the diagnostic tools provided to them to monitor the system, where outdated and inaccurate. This is almost as funny as the report on the cause of the outage that came out days after the event, that laid the blame on a rodent of some sort, which apparently had chewed through a major transformer cable.

The Final Report of the Task Force, released on April 5, 2004, presented 46 recommendations for action. To date only a third of these recommendations have been implemented to any degree, of those most are minor changes.

The result is that two years later, Ontario residents are still being threatened with the potential of another major blackout occurring.

Now the fun part, where were you during the blackout? I had the fortunate pleasure of being in Toronto on an exterior shoot for the production "Dawn of the Dead". I remember the night quite vividly. I was one of a couple hundred "zombies" sitting around holding down on Cherry Street near Front waiting for a shot to be set up, when suddenly the power went out.

At the time, many of us where standing around outside the the tent set up, thinking "oh well another brown out, this won't take long". That was about 8:00pm or so, then I saw the lights in the banking towers slowly disappear floor by floor down from the top. Within fifteen minutes the entire city was covered in a sea of blackness.

For the next thirty minutes it was a bit chaotic, as AD's, and crew ran around phoning, trying to get reports to what was happening. At around eight thirty the word came down that the black out was much bigger than we thought. All of southern Ontario was dark, and police forces where immobilizing preparing for the worst, which thank god never happened.

What I found most fascinating, this had to be the first time since the dawn of the industrial age that actually could see stars in the Toronto sky.

I was finally cleaned up and wrapped by 9:30pm and on my way home, not sure if the next day was still a go. Fortunately the big black out was over by morning and the show went on, oh and thank god for battery operated pagers or I would have never gotten up.

Click on the title link to read the reports.

Kenaz,