Calm after the anxiety of getting here, in a cafeteria at the airport, people smoke cigarettes and families carry bags, in acrid smolder, or colorful intimacy. Yesterday a radio commentator, reflecting on the survivors of Hiroshima, said he was amazed that people are so resiliant. But more people died immediately and later from radiation sickness than those who survived, perhaps only one person in every ten families. We create our own hurry and distraction, if chance does not provide, blinds for what might occur in our minds if we fail to divert ourselves. Smokers continue to smoke and those who survive ignore the risk. The commentator ignores the horror we all want to ignore. Is it healthy if ignorance means another family can grow without fear— and do nothing about it?
9 August 1987