Reverberations

The magnitude of the disaster in Japan is starting to sink in. The photo that drove it home, at least for me, was the one that graced the front of yesterday's New York Times (see right). The Japanese prime minister tells us that it is Japan's worst crisis since World War II. He has ordered the largest mobilization of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces since World War II. Emphasizing the magnitude of the event, Japan is now measurably closer to the US. As if recovering from an earthquake and a tsunami were insufficient, the people of Japan are now confronted with their worst nuclear accident ever. There are officers in radiation suits scanning residents near affected nuclear power plants with Geiger counters. The authorities are evacuating over 200,000 people, and are preparing to hand out iodine pills (so that the thyroid is flooded with "normal" iodine, rather than radioactive Iodine-131). According ...