Assorted musings from the hilltop between the Schuykill River and the Wissahickon Creek.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Can't make this stuff up
I seriously just heard Curt Weldon, US representative from Delaware County, propose a "windfall profits" tax on gasoline since the prices are too high. Un-friggin-believable. These people run our country.
From the outset, Prianichnikov suspected the accident was catastrophic, but without a dosimeter he found it hard to convince his neighbours of such a heretical idea: 'People wouldn't believe me - and they could give you eight years in prison for going around saying things like that.' When he finally got through to his boss at the station, he was told that an exercise was being conducted. But by the time the sunbathers had been hospitalised with nausea and vomiting, Prianichnikov had shut his wife and daughter indoors, and had them packed and ready to leave. That night, from the sixth-floor balcony of the flat, they watched yellow and green flames flare from the torn ruins of Reactor No 4. On Sunday the 27th, Pripyat was finally evacuated. The population went quickly and calmly under the eyes of the militia, but were forced to leave their pets behind. Their coats hopelessly irradiated, many dogs ran after the buses as far as they could, but eventually fell back to the town, where they began to turn feral. A group of local hunters with shotguns was sent in to shoot the animals. By 29 April, the streets of Pripyat were littered with their radioactive corpses.
It’s so ridiculous and clumsy, but still some people believe it: they say that we are standing there simply for money. First they said we received 20 thousand Belarusian rubles [about $10], but then they realized that it looked ridiculous, so the authorities increased our ‘wages’ to $50 (almost 5 times more!).
Oh my God! Let those who believe it come there and try to stand under the looks and cameras of the people in civilian clothes. 14 hours standing there, growing numb, waiting for the dawn like a rescue. And see in the morning that there is so little ‘reinforcement’, as people simply cannot push through. And with every minute feel how the ring becomes rarer, because people do not bear it and have to leave to sleep, and there is no change. And every minute wait for a storm, beating, provocation. And know that probably tomorrow you will be excluded from the university, or fired, or taken to jail.
