Death of a Holy Man
Part I: An American Religion
Hiroshima Mayor Says
US Worships Nukes
“HIROSHIMA — Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba warned that the world is moving toward war and accused Washington of ‘worshipping’ nuclear weapons during Wednesday’s ceremony marking the 58th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city….
… the Hiroshima mayor blamed the United States for making the world a more uncertain place through its policy of undermining the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
‘A world without nuclear weapons and war that the victims of the atomic bomb have long sought for is slipping into the shadows of growing black clouds that could turn into mushroom clouds at any moment,’ Akiba said. ‘The chief cause of this is the United States’ nuclear policy which, by openly declaring the possibility of a pre-emptive nuclear strike and by starting research into small ‘useable’ nuclear weapons, appears to worship nuclear weapons as God.’ “
— Mainichi Shimbun, Aug. 6, 2003
Part II: Holy Men and
Sons of Bitches
“I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.”
— Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer,
Director of Los Alamos
John Steinbeck describing Cannery Row in Monterey:
“Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, ‘whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,’ by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, ‘Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,’ and he would have meant the same thing.”
“Now we are all sons of bitches.”
— Dr. Kenneth Bainbridge,
Director of Trinity Test
Part III: Death of a Holy Man
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The New York Times, Aug. 10, 2003: Atom-Bomb Physicist Dies at 98 “Henry A. Boorse, a physicist who was one of the original scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project in the development of the atomic bomb, died on July 28 in Houston, where he lived…. Dr. Boorse was a consultant to the United States Atomic Energy Commission from 1946 to 1958 and to the Brookhaven National Laboratory from 1951 to 1955. He and Lloyd Motz wrote a two-volume work, The World of the Atom (1966), and — with Jefferson Hane Weaver — a one-volume book, The Atomic Scientists (1989).” |
From a review of The Atomic Scientists:
“… the authors try to add a personal element that can excite the reader about science.”
For more excitement, see Timequake, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
“Glory be to the bomb, and to the holy fallout..”
–‘Beneath The Planet Of The Apes‘
Comment by HomerTheBrave — Monday, August 11, 2003 @ 1:10 pm