Japanese Monster Movie

Gojira rises from the sea, causing a massive tidal wave, and proceeds to level Tokyo with an intense beam of radiation belched from his mouth.

I'm beginning to think all those Saturday afternoon monster movies were predictive tales.  When I look at some of the video coming out of Japan, they look like scenes from Gojira vs. (monster of the week).  Lots of Japanese people pointing, running and screaming.  Tidal waves.  Buildings blowing up or collapsing.  Streets cracking apart.

And in one of those supreme ironies of history, the kind that makes you think that Universe has a wicked sense of humor, the banner headline of the decade: Japan Nukes Itself, America Gets Fallout.

Somehow, I can't help thinking there is a certain revenge factor to all the news, though I hasten to point out that I am not making light of the situation.

I know a number of folks who are either survivors of, or victims of the Sumatera tsunami of 2004.  This whole thing is rather traumatic for them, as it brings back vivid memories.  I can see in their eyes the pain and terror they experienced, so I am loath to lessen the impact of such events.  However, my father, the historian, liked to point out that one of the societal mechanisms that had allowed America to rise to prominence was its ability to laugh in the face of certain doom.  He told me many jokes that soldiers used in WWII to lighten the mood and mentally survive the unsurvivable.

One of the most popular TV shows in history, M*A*S*H, explored the character of Hawkeye Pierce, who used humor as a mental firewall to prevent the horrors he witnessed from damaging his inner-most being.

The Japanese don't have such a defense mechanism.  In fact, they have very little sense of humor at all, much like the Germans of Europe.  That's not to say they can't laugh, but the idea of making light of dire situations is not a cultural norm.

I'm one of those people that, in the middle of a crisis, becomes very calm and deals with things on a first-come-first-served basis.  After the danger has passed, then I collapse into the quivering lump of Jell-O.  It's a feature of my personality that my mother has remarked on all of my life.  In a crisis, she says, I'm the one to have around, because I'm the only calm head.

As disasters go, though, the current Japanese situation is quite stunning.  It has the potential to create one of the worst-case scenarios of modern civilization.  It can release clouds of uncontrollable radioactive dust.  The cores could create a sort of "America Syndrome," since they would melt FROM China, rather than to China. There's any number of hypothetical and theoretical situations that are being tested here.

An even more interesting phenomenon is the reaction of Indonesians.  Folks here are blessedly unconcerned with events in the wider world.  The Middle East riots received a little attention, but mostly Indonesians practice a kind of cultural navel-staring, since historically they have been so isolated from much of the winds of history.

However, the Japanese events have actually caused people to look up, even if only for a moment, and take notice of events in the world at large.

Indonesia is the proud owner of a single nuclear reactor.  It's an experimental rig somewhat like a bike with training wheels.  They are investigating nuclear power as an addition to the rather well-developed geothermal and hydroelectric generators that are becoming ubiquitous here.  As luck and fate would have it, the reactor is located in Tnaggerang, which is about 10 miles upwind of my house, in one of the most earthquake-, volcano- and tsunami-ridden parts of the world.

To the average Indonesian, radiation is a non-existent threat.  The average Indonesian can go cradle to grave without a single X-ray, CAT scan or MRI.  Out of all the electrons on the local grid, maybe half-a-dozen come from nuclear generation.  In other words, radiation just ain't a big concern here.

The best the national government can do right now is issue warnings not to play in the rain, which is anathema to an Indonesian anyway.  I suppose the idea is that dry dust doesn't settle here, but wet dust does.  Right on cue, we had a massive downpour and flash flood here in Jakarta last night.  My ojek driver rammed his motorcycle through three feet of water to pick me up at the bus stop.  Obviously, he hadn't gotten word about the national warnings.

I have been on a one-man crusade to educate folks about KI, or kalium iodid, in the local parlance.  They are generally unaware that iodine is essential to healthy thyroid function, and that nuclear disasters release gobs of radioactive isotopes of iodine that are readily absorbed by the thyroid and lead to ripple-down health effects, known generally as radiation poisoning.

KI fills the thyroid to overflowing with 'clean' iodine and prevents the uptake of radioactive isotopes, thus providing a modicum of protection from various diseases.  I was lucky to find a decent supply in a local chemist's shop.  He reported no other calls for it, as I bought the lot.

The situation we're in now, with multiple disasters, both natural and political, will become the norm for the next couple of years.  We are at a cross-roads of history, where major forces affecting humanity are intersecting at the same temporal point.  The things that are happening now are not recorded in textbooks, because the history that covers these events has been brutally suppressed.  We are not allowed to know about what happened with the human species and Earth in general, past 11,000 years ago.  According to the books, Mankind arose, learned to farm, built cities, and survived until now.  The fact that we have done this, as a species, over and over again is the province of secret societies, whose original job it was to preserve the memory, but who kept the secrets as a form of power currency.

These sorts of cataclysms occur roughly every 26,000 years and nearly wipe out humans, who must then rebuild the world and try to plan and survive the next round.  What happens though is the groups who are supposed to carry the knowledge to the survivors use it as occult power and lord it over the mass of humankind.

There have also been major catastrophes that were induced by those who came before us, and who we revere as gods and goddesses.  They had civilizations that spanned the planets, and most likely the galaxy.  Yet, in fits of civil war and jealousy, they destroyed themselves, leaving only us to witness to their achievements.

Yet, we can not witness because those who have the information keep it from us.  And so we live in fear and wonder as the tide turns and events start to pile one on another.

Maxwell nearly rediscovered the physics that allowed our vastly distant relatives to achieve incredible feats.  His quaternion geometry unlocked the hyperdimensional world that would allow us to at least understand current events, if not predict and control them.  However, he work was suppressed and his equations altered, and the secret societies poured grant money into misleading theories, like relativity and quantum physics.  They created a 'peer review' process to filter and suppress those who came to close to opening the can of worms.

And so here we sit, wondering why the Pacific Rim is afire, why the New Madrid fault is shaking itself awake, why Yellowstone is breathing so heavily, why the Horn of Africa is tearing itself away, why the weather has swung through such great extremes.  It has nothing to do with the activities of Men, except that the solution lies in knowledge long locked away by fraternities whose job it was to bring that information to all humans, but who chose the path of greed and self-interest, to the peril of us all.

If we can believe the information we have, in December of next year, the Vernal Equinox will aline with the plane and center of the galaxy once again, as it does every few millennia.  At that point, the hyperdimensional stresses of local space will be at their maximum and we will suffer the effects for years to come.  Those who survive will be charged with carrying the information to the future.  Let's hope they are better people than those who carried the task until now.  Maybe next time we can avert this cyclic disaster and perhaps move beyond this time loop into something much more interesting.

I have to think that men such as Buddha saw into such things, and that the concept of re-incarnation was not so much an individual phenomenon, but one of species and civilization, as well.  What of our current incarnation will become the pyramids of future time?

Now is the time for our species to chose wisely the means by which we will transmit our knowledge to the future.  Certainly, bankers, lawyers and politicians are incapable of such selfless and insightful acts.  It is up to us, the real and true inheritors of the future.

One additional thought: Suppose STUXNET had infiltrated the Japanese reactors prior to the current situation, and the information was never made public?  Now suppose that the virus had caused key failures in redundant systems during and after the quake in Japan.  That in fact would be the Israeli Mistake of webbot fame, and make Israel partly responsible for crimes against humanity (Japan is not completely absolved in this case).  While we were all watching Iran and the Middle East (remember them?), the real story was shaping up in Japan, and it leads to the deep ponder - how many others?