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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
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Image from the US Navy Office of Information via Google Images
An article by Geoffrey York in last Saturday's Globe and Mail described a present day backlash against the anti-nuke peace movement, including displays of disrespect for the aging Hiroshima survivors still active as spokespeople. According to the article, "when the survivors joined a peace march in Washington, they were jeered at by passersby who shouted 'Go Home!' and 'Remember Pearl Harbour!" York also makes the point that the "concept of 'ground zero' as the epicentre of the first nuclear blast has been appropriated by New York. Ms Takeoka, an outspoken survivor of Hiroshima is quoted:
Most of those with direct memories of the atomic bomb will pass away in the near future. ... It's a big challenge for us, we are asking the younger generation to carry on our stories. ... People are more interested in the anti-terrorism campaign. The focus has shifted away from nuclear weapons. Of course the war on terrorism is important, but nothing can compare to the horror of a nuclear bomb. ... I feel very sad about the world. I have a feeling that ultimately some country will use nuclear weapons again.
Photograph from Atomic Veterans History Project, taken by Henry Dittmer in October 1945 as his unit
debarked and toured the ruins of Hiroshima.
"A month after the bombings [of Hiroshima and Nagasaki], two reporters defied General MacArthur and struck out on their own. Mr. Weller, of the Chicago Daily News, took row boats and trains to reach devastated Nagasaki. Independent journalist Wilfred Burchett rode a train for 30 hours and walked into the charred remains of Hiroshima."Good stuff via Democracy Now by Democracy Now host, Amy Goodman and fellow journalist David Goodman, who have published an article in the Baltimore Sun describing the trials of journalists attempting to cover the bombing who's reports were dismissed as propaganda and censored outright by the US military. The Goodmans are also calling for the retraction of a Pulitzer Prize awarded to "embedded" New York Times journalist William Laurence:
Mr. Laurence had a front-page story in the Times disputing the notion that radiation sickness was killing people. His news story included this remarkable commentary: "The Japanese are still continuing their propaganda aimed at creating the impression that we won the war unfairly, and thus attempting to create sympathy for themselves and milder terms. ... Thus, at the beginning, the Japanese described 'symptoms' that did not ring true."
Mr. Laurence won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the atomic bomb, and his faithful parroting of the government line was crucial in launching a half-century of silence about the deadly lingering effects of the bomb. It is time for the Pulitzer board to strip Hiroshima's apologist and his newspaper of this undeserved prize.
Sixty years late, Mr. Weller's censored account stands as a searing indictment not only of the inhumanity of the atomic bomb but also of the danger of journalists embedding with the government to deceive the world.
Photographs of Hiroshima from Atomic Veterans History Project.
Richard Feynman's account of atomic explosion from Los Alamos:
Time comes, and this tremendous flash out there , so bright I quickly see this purple splotch on the floor of the truck. I said, 'That ain't it. That's an afterimage.' So I turn back up and I see this white light changing into yellow and then into orange. The clouds form and then they disappear again, the compression and the expansion forms and makes clouds disappear. Then finally, a big ball of orange, the centre that was so bright, became a ball of orange that started to rise and billow a little bit and get a little black around the edges and then you see its a big ball of smoke with flashes on the inside of the fire going out, the heat. I saw all that and all this this that I just described in just a moment, took about one minute. It was a series from bright to dark and I had seen it. ... Finally, after about a minute and a half, there's suddenly a tremendous noise, BANG, and then rumble, like thunder, that thats what convinced me. Nobody had said a word during this whole minute, we were all just watching quietly, but this sound released everybody, released me particularly because the solidity of the sound at that distance meant that it had really worked. The man who was standing next to me said, when the sound went off, "What's that?" I said, 'That was the bomb.'Mr Kima's account of an atomic bomb, from Hiroshima 60 years ago:
From "Los Alamos from Below" by Richard Feynman, published in his collection of essays, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
“After I noticed the flash, white clouds spread over the blue sky. It was amazing. It was as if blue morning-glories had suddenly bloomed up in the sky. It was funny, I thought. Then came the heat wave. It was very very hot. Even though there was a window glass in front of me, I felt really hot. It was as if I was looking directly into a kitchen oven. I couldn't bear the heat for a long time. Then I heard the cracking sound. I don't know what made that sound, but probably it came from the air which suddenly expanded in the room. [...] The atomic bomb does not discriminate. Of course, those who were fighting may have to suffer. But the atomic bomb kills everyone from little babies to old people. And it’s not an easy death. It's a very cruel and very painful way to die.”
(transcript from from the video Hiroshima Witness produced by Hiroshima Peace Cultural Center and NHK)
thanks for the Qualia box, R.!
Rob Cruikshank found out that Sony has a product line called Qualia. He sent me the link, cause I've been using the term in my art lately.
Qualia is basically a technical term from philosophy and neurology defining the "subjective qualities of conscious experience (plural of the Latin singular quale). Examples are the way sugar tastes, the way vermillion looks, the way coffee smells, the way a cat's purr sounds, the way it feels to stub your toe." (Oxford Companion to Philosophy). The term is distinct from sensory perception, or taste or smell, in that it pertains specifically to the function of consciousness. In this regard, qualia has come into question, particularly by Daniel C. Dennett, who does not adhere to the idea of definitive, singular moments of consciouness. Dennett is an influential materialist but some of his colleagues think that in denying qualia he goes too far.
Sony defines qualia as, "phenomena of the heart and mind that can not quite be described in words."
Their website has an eerie dialogue between a guy from Sony's comuputer science lab who is "on a quest to understand qualia" and the chairman of Sony. I've never seen marketing quite like this before.
MOGI : Can you describe some of your qualia experiences?Thanks Rob, I think. For more interesting and bothersome stuff, see Rob's blog.
IDEI : Oh, I have many, although they may sound rather dull when described. Let's see, there are many moments of qualia during a trip, for example. I remember the time I went to the Grand Canyon and rode a mule down to the Colorado River. It took four hours, and when we finally reached the river, I looked up and saw a sky full of stars. That was fantastic. Even now, when I look at starry skies, I remember the qualia of that time. Also, many years ago, I heard Mendelssohn's violin concerto being played by musicians who weren't very skilled. For some reason I can't forget that particular quality of sound. Why is it that we are so moved by things that can't be explained by logic?
[...]
MOGI : The psychologist Daniel Kahneman, one of the winners of the 2002 Nobel Economics Prize, pursues exactly that problem of human behavior defying economic rationality. For example, it's hard to explain from an economic point of view why some person may want to spend a lot of money on an expensive brand-name bag, but it is the most rational and obvious thing to do from the point of view of the human brain. Sony's QUALIA made me realize, actually, the potential of the concept of qualia.
Lately I've been working with images of light shifts. Sarah Peebles has been making music for sunsets (I posted about her real-time installation with Rob Cruickshank last fall). My images were not consciously made with Sarah Peebles' project in mind, and are more about clunky tinkering than subtle effect, but there is certainly some connection nonetheless. I do NOT recommend listening to Sarah's music while staring at my blatant gifs & jpegs, but instead follow her recommendation and watch a real sunset (it will have nicer gradients and way more than 256 colours).
From Sarah:
Music for Incandescent Events; Sunset
Online audio for your listening-viewing pleasure at Sonus.ca.
by Sarah Peebles
Watch the sunset or sunrise and listen while online. Two audio mp3 files (short and long) of Music for Incandescent Events are at Sonus.ca:
http://www.sonus.ca/app/ui/more.php?Language=en&MediaID=1492
http://www.sonus.ca/app/ui/more.php?Language=en&MediaID=1494
This is straight-up audio to apply to your very own sunset, sunrise, aurora borealis, lava flow or other incandescent experience. Watch your own local thang while listening online or on your mp3 player.