Note: I considered this story too frightening to send initially and replied it with a nice
story about horses. Now I have changed my mind. Sorry to scare you as much as
I am scared.
alan
EPISODE 544: A CHILL SPREADS AROUND THE WORLD: CONSIDER THE NUCLEAR REACTORS
alan skeoch
March 2022
Marjorie and I…SITE OF THREE MILE ISLAND NUCLEAR DISASTER,
“WHAT CAN HAPPEN, WILL HAPPEN”
Nuclear power plants are constructed with provision for things to go wrong. SAFETY CHECKS. We need their power. We cannot
survive without electricity. It powers everything we do. Electricity is wonderful.. But
getting electricity is dangerous. Dangerous indeed.
THREE MILE ISLAND, 1979
ON MARCH 28, 1979, a human error occurred at Unit 2, Three Mile Island nuclear power
plant. A valve was open allowing a huge amount of radioactive water to escape. This event
remains the worst nuclear accident to happen in the United States. No one was killed
fortunately but the resultant radiation will remain forever.
That worried me in 1979. And it worries me to this day. When we took a busload of music
students from Parkdale Collegiate to perform in Boston we arranged a short side trip
to Three Mile Island. Around 1985. Purpose? To spread fear? Partly, I suppose. Our reasoning was
that these students would shortly be adults. Soon running our country. They should be
aware of the danger of nuclear accidents. Cheap electricity could come at a terrible cost
if future managers of nuclear sites were unaware of Three Mile Island, Unit 2.
CHERNOBYL, 1986
Such a disaster must never happen again. But it did. The Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine
happened just seven years after Three Mile Island. On April 26, 1986 nuclear reactor Number 4
exploded. The site will remain radioactive for thousands of years. The immediate site was
evacuated so hastily that the local carnival rides stand there today as do the apartment buildings
where people once lived. 335,000 people were evacuated and a wide belt of land was no longer livable.
Wild animals returned and now wander through Chernobyl.
“The explosion at Chernobyl sent radiation as far away as the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union’s delayed response to the events is considered by some to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union. “
As a direct result of Chernobyl nuclear power plants were redesigned so that accidents were thought to be less likely.
Wild horses wander through the ruins of Chernobyl on Oct. 18, 2018
FUKISHIMA, 2011
Then there were decades of quiet. Nuclear power plants multiplied. Safety systems
were put in place. Extra holding tanks for nuclear coolant. Burials of nuclear waste.
Comfort. An earthquake off the coast of Japan shook the Fukishama reactor on March 11, 2011
A huge tidal wave, Tsunami, swept inland. Radiosctivity increased to Level 7 on the International
Nuclear Event Scale…Fukishama and Chernobyl were similar disasters. 154,000 Japanese residents
were evacuated.
ZAPOREZHSKAYA, LARGEST PPWER PLANT IN EROPE WITH SIX REACTORS
Today, March 2022 we face the possibility of s grave nuclear accident in Ukraine where the largest
nuclear power station in Europe has become a war zone. War zones are places of unimaginable
insecurity. The Zaporezhskaya nuclear power plant has 6 reactors.
“March 2, 2022
6:05 a.m.: Russia claims its military has taken control of the area around Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant.
That’s according to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
It said Wednesday it had received a letter from Russia saying personnel at the Zaporizhzhia plant continued their “work on providing nuclear safety and monitoring radiation in normal mode of operation.”
The letter added: “The radiation levels remain normal.”
Zaporizhzhia is the largest of Ukraine’s nuclear sites, with six out of the country’s 15 reactors.
Already, Russia has seized control of the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986.”
alan skeoch
March 7, 2022
Let us hope and pray this is not the end result of this terrible war.
ERROR: YEAR OF OUR VISIT TO SLOVAKIA SHOULD BE 1993, CORRECT PREVIOUS EPISODES
EPISODE 543 PRAGUE, MARCH,1993 JOY IN ETHNIC COSTUME — PEACEFUL UPHEAVALS HAPPEN
alan skeoch
March 5, 2022
NOTE: As Marjorie pointed out, the year we were in Slovakia was 1993, not 1989 as said in error in earlier Episodes.
BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS…MARJORIE SKEOCH AND CZECH DANCER, PRAGUE, MARCH 1993
On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia split into two independent states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in what is now known as the “Velvet divorce” (in a reference to the Velvet revolution) due to its peaceful and negotiated nature. Both countries divided their common “goods” (embassies, military equipment, etc.) on a two-to-one ratio to reflect their populations. Although the dissolution didn’t lead to any unrest or bloodshed, the new frontiers did create a few odd situations, like splitting border-towns in half.
The split “was not entirely inevitable, but the political and economic costs of keeping the country together would have been extremely high”, pointed out Jiri Pehe, political analyst and former advisor to Vaclav Havel.
The division of Czechoslovakia: an undemocratic decision?
A widespread narrative argues that the divorce was a purely political move decided behind closed-doors by Czech and Slovak leaders Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar against the will of the population. There is some truth in that: all the opinion polls at that time showed that a vast majority of Czechs and Slovaks was in favour of the preservation of Czechoslovakia and against the country’s break-up.
In its January 1, 1993 edition, the New York Times wrote: “A multi-ethnic nation born at the end of World War I in the glow of pan-Slavic brotherhood, Czechoslovakia survived dismemberment by the Nazis and more than four decades of Communist rule only to fall apart after just three years of democracy”.
Although no referendum was ever held on the matter, democracy was indeed at the heart of the issue: all the problems associated with the federation of two states of unequal weight and size only appeared after the centralized, communist regime collapsed as Czechoslovakia reconnected with democracy. The decision-making paralysis and the federal government’s inability to push any significant reforms in the early 1990’s strongly contributed to the top-down decision of Klaus and Meciar.
Centre of Prague, Czech Republic, March 1993
An upheaval was happening but only Kevin Skeoch seemed to notice. Note the Pink clad coat of optimism on Marjorie.
Bakeshop…Normal exchanges happening
Look at the boy with the glasses. He notices something joyful.
Street scene Prague, Czech Republic, March 1993. Joy seemed everywhere.
JOYFUL DAYS IN PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC, MARCH 1993
TRAGIC DAYS IN UKRAINE, MARCH 2022…DID THINGS HAVE TO GO SO HORRIBLY WRONG?
Today, March 5, 2022, ‘We watch in horror as unspeakable crimes by one man, Vladimir Putin, tear
Ukraine into pieces that will take generations to repair. Did this have to happen?
Was there not another way to effect change, perhaps by respecting neutrality?
Our eldest son, Kevin Skeoch, had high hopes for Ukraine and Russia finding the
middle road through education. He had (has?) the clout of a CEO in International
Schools around the world. Upbeat, positive, above the grimy sludge of low level
politics. Will happy days return? “We can but hope that somehow good will be the final
goal of ill,” as the saying goes.
In 1993, when Kev was a “$4 a day” teacher in Slovakia there were terrific changes happening.
Political changes, as the Soviet Union collapsed and sane heads tried to
manage the collapse sensibly. It was not an easy time. On our March break
in 1989, Marjorie snd I visited Kevin in Bratislava, Slovakia with a side trip
to Prague, Czech Republic. A political divorce. The former, rather artificial , nation of Czechoslovakia
decided to get a divorce.
Notice the reflections…admirers of folk art…Marjorie and Kevin Skeoch
When we crossed the new border between these new states we almost missed
the border guards. Come to think of it, We did miss them. We did not stop as I remember. A political divorce
without much ill will. Yes, we saw more ill will in the Slovak Republic. Poorer of the two states, it
seemed. Graffiti on a few walls saying “English go home”. Negatives that longed
for the idealism of Marxism.
Gorbachev…a leader with a birthmark…a leader.
I remember us driving into a Slovak lodge in the High Tatra mountains where a bunch
of young rather drunk Slovak ’20 somethings’ were taking a collective leak (piss). Noticing us,… perhaps Marjorie’s
bright pink coat…they turned and pissed in our direction. They laughed and we laughed.
A difference of opinion expressed and accepted. Done without tearing the nation
apart.
What is happening here? I had no idea in 1993. But whatever was happening was full of joy.
If only a leader like Marjorie and a leader like the costume bedecked young lady were present today.
A few days later we witnessed the reverse situation in the heart of Prague where
ethnic clothed dancers were expressing great joy while dancing on the street.
If pressed
to take a leak there was a squeaky clean toilet available in a huge MacDonald’s
fast food store.
If only Ukraine and Russia could have found the same common ground. If only we
could find ourselves, our global selves, with leaders who can lead. If only there was
EPISODE 542 SALESMAN IN PRAGUE IN 1989 — MESSAGE FOR US ALL IN 2022
alan skeoch
March 4, 2022
Young man’s sale booth on a main street in Prague, new Czech Republic. 1989. Sobering picture
when his goods are examined closely. How the mighty have fallen.!
.
There is a larger meaning here. In 1989, with the speed of summer lightning, all the uniforms of
the Red Army were suddenly of no value…just tokens for sale on a side street. It was this
collapse that drove Vladimir Putin into the madness we see today, March 4, 2022, in my humble opinion.
I do not mean these folderol dolls. They were always for sale in street markets. The sudden appearance of other
marketable goods is clear below. I REPEAT. How the mighty have fallen.
Suddenly all the insignia of the Soviet Union was up for sale. Just scrap.
Message: Upheavals are not slow…sometimes they come with suddenness that
races ahead of complete understanding. And thousands, millions of people get hurt as we are witnessing today. Lives are changed forever. This has happened often in world history.
AND TODAY OVER 1 MILLION PEOPLE HAVE FLED UKRAINE….ABANDONING ALL THEY OWNED. WILL ANY EVER RETURN? WHAT WILL BE LEFT TO RETURN TO?
