Still fearful after all these years

Raise your hand if you remember where you were 10 years ago today.

I'll bet almost all of you remember it like yesterday. I sure do. Watching thousands of people murdered on live television is not something you can easily forget.

It was a time of strong emotion: confusion, fear, grief, anger. We mourned together as one country, and we plotted our revenge together.

But it has not been satisfying, nor have we obtained closure. We attacked two countries, but saw mostly quagmire. The economy has never regained its pre-attack strength. The unity after the attack was quickly replaced by the bitterest partisan bickering this country has seen in a long time. Even the taking down of the 9/11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden, didn't generate more than a momentary sense of satisfaction.

Thirty-two years ago, a President gave a speech in which he talked about our country's malaise. The voters hated him for it, choosing to fire Carter and bring in the optimist Reagan. But today, politicians are competing not to deny the malaise but to pin it on the other guy.

What happened to us 10 years ago? Why can't we get out of this funk? Did we take a bite of the apple, lose our innocence, and get tossed out of the garden? Or are we suffering from PTSD and showing symptoms of depression that just won't disappear?

First Lucky Island

One thing seems evident when looking at the nuclear crisis at Fukushima Dai-Ichi (literally, Fortunate Island Number One, not to be confused with Three Mile Island).

If you are a fan of nuclear energy, that one thing is that even after one of the biggest earthquakes ever followed by a huge tsunami, the worst case scenario didn't happen. Nuclear is even more good-to-go than before.

If you are a nuclear foe, then what happened in Japan proves how dangerous this technology is. It is only pure luck and seat-of-the-pants management that prevented a complete meltdown and huge nuclear disaster.

I look at things differently.


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No Longer Polar Opposites

As a child I liked to dig deep holes straight down, on the theory that I'd eventually make it to China.

It turns out that if I'd kept going and survived the 10,000 degrees at the earth's core, I would have popped up in the Indian Ocean off Australia. China is exactly opposite us in longitude, but at the same latitude.

It's probably for the best that I didn't make it. At the time, China was in the hands of Mao. Mao was never called Emperor, but he acted as one, perhaps one of the cruelest in China's history. Tens of millions died under his rule, and the souls of many more were crushed.

On his recent trip to the U.S., Chinese President Hu made waves saying that while his country has "made enormous progress," "a lot has to be done in China in terms of human rights."

He is right.


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