Junkyard Quotes: Week of 3/14/11

1) “There are no cars on the roads, yet people wait at the pedestrian crossings until green man comes on, to cross the road.”

BBC reporting on what media has called the Japanese people’s “stoic calm.”

2) "She kept her status hidden from me. At the time, there were all sorts of rumours. People in Tokyo said 'Don't marry someone from Hiroshima, you will be contaminated'."

The husband of a Hiroshima survivor, Hiroko Tanaka, who waited 50 years (the article said) before applying for the certificate to prove to the government that she was a survivor of the atom bomb of 1945.

3) “I think we should let them join and just send them to the front lines.”

A co-worker, on gay soldiers. I have too much of an emotional response to this to be coherent, probably.

4) “Over the last 30 years in the United States, how many people have died because of nuclear energy? The answer is none. Zero. Zip. But guess which energy industry has experienced 35 deaths over the last 30 years? Wind. Yup. The wind turbine industry is responsible for more deaths in the United States over the last 30 years than nuclear energy.”

Thanks, Boortz! I’m glad to know that wind is evil and must be stopped. Green kills, people! Green kills people! Totally missing the point about toxic waste and long-term health issues, to name just two concerns people generally have. Silly people! But I loved this response in the comments section the best: “And what's the source of this stat? How did these wind turbines kill 35 people? Probably more people have died in America over the past year from putting up Christmas lights than they have from Islamic terror. Does that mean that Christmas lights are more dangerous?”

In other “missing the point” news…

5) “You don’t believe we were given dominion over animals?”

The response was genuine disbelief when I said “No.” This was in response to me feeling upset over how this co-worker was handling a mouse caught in a trap. We didn’t have time to get into a debate over the origin of species, unfortunately, since he seemed to assume that we're both working from a creationist viewpoint, but it remains a hot topic for me that so many people engage in an either/or debate concerning animal cruelty. But even from that viewpoint: didn't he feel God created all life, and that the point of sacrifice is to impress on sinners the gravity of their sins? That has been my impression, rather than to shrug off the sin as just some more red tape in goat's blood and "Did you see that blood spraying? Awesome!"