demagogue on 1/7/2019 at 03:36
Interestingly for my research on Fukushima I got caught up in some deep-well research into the physics of cesium, how it leaches through soil & gets absorbed into plant life (biouptake), and the whole cesium cycle in an ecosystem (not too different from the potassium cycle), etc. Soil & plant Cs absorption happens most readily in the peaty soil of forests, which is why mushrooms and berries, which grow in such conditions, get particularly concentrated with the stuff for the longest period of time. I don't recall the story with reindeer, but if they eat from those kinds of areas, I could imagine the Cs getting concentrated in the meat.
It was all pretty interesting, then I'd remember these are actual places that actual people have to deal with in their daily life. (On top of everything else, something like 70% of Fukushima Prefecture is forestland, and you can't really decontaminate it for a lot of reasons, nor would it be remotely cost effective for what little you could even do.)
Tony_Tarantula on 1/7/2019 at 14:08
Quote Posted by Starker
Dude, just stop. When it comes to the Soviet Union, you have no idea. There isn't a single fellow countryman that I know who hasn't had people in their family executed or sent to Siberia. My own family fought against the Soviet regime and suffered the consequences. This isn't a topic for you to waffle about and pretend you know what you're talking about because you read some things, let alone try to lecture people whose lived experience this is.
Why the hell are you lashing out at me? What I posted SUPPORTS what you said.
If we're going to go down the whole "nobody is allowed to say anything except X group" direction then please kindly refrain from ever commenting on anything that has to do with American foreign policy. Besides which you have one perspective. Other people have other perspectives that may grant additional insight. It's not as if Angela Merkel and a bus driver have the same perspective and knowledge because they're both Germans.
The travesty is that the events of the Soviet Union aren't more ingrained in our consciousness, and it's a damning condemnation of our educational system that so few Americans even know what happened there.
Starker on 1/7/2019 at 19:03
Because you're trying to be an insufferable know-it-all on a subject that has affected my whole family. This isn't a matter to show off how very smart you are. If your family has similarly suffered due to American foreign policy, I will take this into account, of course, but kindly refrain from trying to lecture me on this subject. I should read Gulag Archipelago? Fuck off. My family lived it before the book was even written. It was on our shelf as soon as it became available.
You trying to lecture me on Soviet repression is the equivalent of going to a descendant of Nazi regime survivors and pontificating about the Holocaust.
Tony_Tarantula on 1/7/2019 at 19:32
Dude I wasn't trying to "lecture" you. I was referring you to a book you might find interesting because it touches on the same topics you posted about and I described what I learned.
What's wrong with you?
Starker on 1/7/2019 at 19:51
What's wrong with you? Do you not get enough attention at home or something? You not only suggested reading this book to someone who was friggin' born in the USSR, you went on to tell me all about how Soviet society worked -- something you know little about and something that I personally experienced. Not to mention that your very first post here in the tread was already flippant.
As I said already, and I'm starting to get tired of having to repeat myself, this isn't a topic for you to waffle about and pretend you know what you're talking about because you read some things. This is like a white guy trying to tell a black civil rights activist about the history of the civil rights movement and suggesting that they should read some of Martin Luther King's speeches.
Sulphur on 2/7/2019 at 03:26
If you had any kind of sense, you'd shut the fuck up now, Tony.
henke on 3/7/2019 at 20:17
Seconded.
Anyway, watched the show over the past 3 evenings, and, yeah, what everyone else said. It's the kind of thing you just can't tear yourself away from once you start watching. Terrifying, infuriating, exciting, heartbreaking, while still being completely believable. Great performances by the cast, I particularly liked Stellan Skarsgård's character.
I was 5 when this happened, and I don't remember any of it. Mom says her and grandma dug up the leek grass plant that was growing in our yard and hid it because they didn't want me eating it and getting irradiated. Usually whenever I went outside I'd go straight for it and start munching on that delicious, delicious leek grass. Mmm... leek grass.
Renzatic on 3/7/2019 at 22:44
I was about the same way, though it wasn't leek grass I ran for. Oh no. Yard mushrooms were my thing.
It's funny how I remember everything about the day I got caught eating a yard mushroom, up to the point I was given the syrup of ipecac, then leaned over a tub. It's all just an empty void after that.
Gray on 3/7/2019 at 23:10
Quote Posted by henke
Stellan Skarsgård
Oh shit, is he in it? Well I'll simply have to watch it now, probably the greatest Swedish actor of his generation. I was already going to, but now I'm completely sold.