Damnation Alley.
Thinking of reactor number 3...the one that contains Plutonium..
Mostly I'm amazed.
The word reactor may sound scientific and clever, but the reality is a large kettle containing something very nasty!
Regards the mythology, Pluto meaning wealth was the golden wealth of the ground. The invisible process that caused the wheat and barley seeds to sprout and become a sea of sun ripe, shimmering gold.
By the time Allen Ginsburg wrote Plutonium Ode, the wheat fields no longer flourished because of an underground life-force. The element involved was identified as Nitrogen (essential for plants to make proteins). Mr Haber -and his process so useful for bomb making- now gets the credit in GCSE chemistry books that was once given to unknown forces. And yet it is as if Haber continued to make offerings to the Lord of the Dead; after he turned his hand to developing Chlorine to be used on the battlefield, his wife committed suicide.
Radioactive things are fascinating though. Radiation as mysterious X rays and the uncanny glowing streamers of light within a Crooks tube provided the best evidence, at least as far as the public imagination was concerned, for the existence of a spirit world.
And here is Sir Conan Doyle (who started out to prove that spiritualists and mediums were lying...but changed his mind, and began to believe in life after death.
Which reminds me, I need to find a Spiritualist church at some point.
Finally though, reactors and Plutonium and the insanity of man.
Nothing for it but Hawkwind!
Mostly I'm amazed.
The word reactor may sound scientific and clever, but the reality is a large kettle containing something very nasty!
Regards the mythology, Pluto meaning wealth was the golden wealth of the ground. The invisible process that caused the wheat and barley seeds to sprout and become a sea of sun ripe, shimmering gold.
By the time Allen Ginsburg wrote Plutonium Ode, the wheat fields no longer flourished because of an underground life-force. The element involved was identified as Nitrogen (essential for plants to make proteins). Mr Haber -and his process so useful for bomb making- now gets the credit in GCSE chemistry books that was once given to unknown forces. And yet it is as if Haber continued to make offerings to the Lord of the Dead; after he turned his hand to developing Chlorine to be used on the battlefield, his wife committed suicide.
Radioactive things are fascinating though. Radiation as mysterious X rays and the uncanny glowing streamers of light within a Crooks tube provided the best evidence, at least as far as the public imagination was concerned, for the existence of a spirit world.
And here is Sir Conan Doyle (who started out to prove that spiritualists and mediums were lying...but changed his mind, and began to believe in life after death.
Which reminds me, I need to find a Spiritualist church at some point.
Finally though, reactors and Plutonium and the insanity of man.
Nothing for it but Hawkwind!
