This documentary aired on HBO last night. I had seen the promos for it for a few weeks. Yesterday, on the 62nd anniversary of the attacks, it was broadcast, after years of waiting for the right time.

Having done all the research I have on dealing with and surviving a nuclear attack, including reading such classics as John Hersey’s “Hiroshima”, I was not fully prepared to hear from the actual victims and survivors of the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

It’s one thing to read about it. Still another to see the old films of before, during, and immediately after the attack.

To hear many of the very badly injured people tell their story in their own words, and see their wounds and injuries still affecting them even after 60+ years was powerful beyond words.

I found the documentary very objective, without any kind of sensationalism, editorial context, or slanting, and both the American and Japanese bureaucracies before and after are covered as well.

For any of you that have in your preps for planning for a nearby nuclear detonation (global thermonuclear war, or terrorist dirty bomb) there is a LOT to learn from this film.

It will be on many more times this month on HBO, and can even be seen on HBO’s website.

Here are several links….

main HBO page for the documentary…
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whitelightblackrain/index.html

Synopsis of the show…
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whitelightblackrain/synopsis.html

Debuting on the 62nd anniversary of the bombings, WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN provides a graphic, unflinching look at the reality of nuclear warfare through first-hand accounts of both survivors and American men who carried out the bombing missions.

“With WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN, I wanted to tell one of the great human stories of one of history’s monumental tragedies,” notes Okazaki, who met more than 500 survivors and interviewed more than 100 people before choosing the 14 subjects featured in the film. “The personal memories of the survivors are amazing, shocking and inspiring. They put a human face on the incalculable destruction caused by nuclear war.”

In addition to interviews with 14 atomic bomb survivors, many of whom have never spoken publicly before, WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN spotlights four Americans intimately involved in the bombings. Okazaki interweaves rarely seen, intense archival footage and photographs, banned for 25 years after the war, with survivors’ paintings and drawings, all of which convey the devastating toll of atomic warfare in human terms.

While 140,000 died in Hiroshima, and 70,000 in Nagasaki, the survivors - 85% of whom were civilians - not vaporized during the attacks continued to suffer burns, infection, radiation sickness and cancer, which would ultimately result in another 160,000 deaths. In a succession of riveting personal accounts, the film reveals both unimaginable suffering and extraordinary human resilience. Sakue Shimohira, ten years old at the time, recalls the moment she considered killing herself after losing the last member of her family, saying, “I realized there are two kinds of courage - the courage to die and the courage to live.”

Other survivors include: Kiyoko Imori, just blocks from the hypocenter, the only survivor of an elementary school of 620 students; Shigeko Sasamori, 13 years old at the time, one of the 25 “Hiroshima Maidens” brought to the U.S. for plastic surgery; Keiji Nakazawa, who lost his father, brother and two sisters, and devoted his life to retelling his story in comic books and animation; Shuntaro Hida, a young military doctor at the time, who began treating survivors immediately after the explosion and continues to provide care for them 60 years later; and Etsuko Nagano, who still can’t forgive herself for convincing her family to come to Nagasaki, just weeks before the bombing.

In addition to physical suffering, survivors were later subjected to intense discrimination from fellow Japanese, and received little or no help from the Japanese government. To this day, to identify oneself as an atomic-bomb survivor, or a descendant of a survivor in Japan, can invite prejudice.

The four Americans profiled are: Morris Jeppson, the weapon test officer on the Enola Gay mission to Hiroshima; Lawrence Johnston, a civilian employee of the University of California, which manages Los Alamos; Harold Agnew, a scientific advisor; and Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, the navigator who believed the mission would end the war and save lives overall.

Today, as global tensions rise, the unthinkable once more becomes possible. The urgency of the warning conveyed in WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN is borne out by a comment from one of the four Americans: “We have opened Pandora’s box, and the genie can’t be stuffed back in the bottle.”

HBO Video releases WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN: THE DESTRUCTION OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI on DVD Aug. 7.

Steven Okazaki’s films, which explore the extraordinary lives of ordinary people, include “Days of Waiting,” winner of a Documentary Short Subject Oscar®, as well as a Peabody Award, and two other Oscar® nominees: “Unfinished Business” and last year’s Cinemax Reel Life presentation “The Mushroom Club.” Among his other documentaries are: “Hunting Tigers,” “Troubled Paradise,” “Americans Sons,” “The Fair” and the HBO documentary “Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street.” Visit the filmmaker’s website.

WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN: THE DESTRUCTION OF HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI is an HBO Documentary Films presentation, produced by Farallon Films; directed, written and produced by Steven Okazaki. For HBO: consulting editor, Geoff Bartz; supervising producer, Sara Bernstein; executive producers, Sheila Nevins and Robert Richter.

Interview with the filmmaker…
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whitelightblackrain/interview.html

Bios of the victims and even developers and delivery team of the bombs…
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whitelightblackrain/subjects.html

Schedule of future broadcasts…dozens of them…
http://www.hbo.com/apps/schedule/ScheduleServlet?ACTION_DETAIL=DETAIL&FOCUS_ID=621813

Filmmakers own website….
http://farfilm.com/web/ffnews.htm

Watch a one minute video from the film on this page…
http://www.hbo.com/docs/index.html

In conclusion, if you are SERIOUS about knowing the real threats of nuclear weapons to any human being, you must see this film to completely and fully understand what these weapons do to the human body….but that also, you can survive an attack depending on your preplanning, and understanding of how nukes work in the real world….and stay aware of world events.

As a prepper, author, husband and father, I can not stress enough how important this work is.

Watch it. Share it. Discuss it. And Learn from it.

Rich

Watch this video by Penn and Teller. It’s an irreverent, satirical, yet biting commentary on the whole issue of gun control, 2nd ammendment rights, and firearms in general.

CAUTION: The name of the show is “Bullsh*t”, and there is blue language…however, I think this show is worth watching for the broad overview these two bring to the subject.

Well….THAT sucked…

OK folks…

I’ve had a very long, very bad day….I’m sick, with a stomach virus that is REALLY about to start kicking in (I saw it in action last night in Laramie when we had to pull to the side of the road for one of our tv crew to decorate someone’s yard, and then had to find a newspaper for him to sit on because he blew at BOTH ends)…

…and the video shoot with the vice president went horribly awry with the satellite truck developing hardware problems JUST as the VP’s plane landed, and our regular on-air engineer throwing up in his hotel room and NOT available to fix it, with our backup, less trained engineer arriving only minutes before air time, after a 3 and a half hour drive across the state….well, it become a total cluster (****)….

…and I didn’t even mention the frikking idiots that the state GOP folks hired to do the audio and nicey nice lighting and multimedia INSIDE the 60 or more year old Laramie High School gym…and who could NOT understand how to set the audio feed to us…causing ME to have to FIGHT MY WAY into the gym..AFTER LOCKDOWN by the secret service and the vice president ALREADY in the building, before he came on stage…

…with me getting a full security scan and pat down, and personal traversal by TWO SS agents from the front door all the way through the crowd, to the AUDIO control guys in the BACK of the gym…who had turned our audio feed OFF from the gym to the satellite truck.

Once they pushed the button, and I got back out to the truck, they were blowing the WORST sounding audio I’ve ever heard in my short TV career….at least 20-40 DB…and we were receiving audio feed into our mic set for -50DB…using XLR mics with balanced stereo levels….and I was NOT about to go through that fight again to get back inside to slap the snot out of them.

Holy Mary Mother of God….

Can my day have been ANY worse?

And, I’m just now posting this, because the “director” of WyoPTV chose for us to stay at the Motel 6…which did NOT have wireless access …or net access at all…so I’m a DAY behind now…and this is the FIRST thread I’ve read and caught up on since arriving home, hugging my wife, playing with my grandson Hudsin, and taking a deep breath…

I’ll have a more detailed report later this week, on the entire event.

For now, understand this….

Cheney gave pretty much the same stump speech he has been giving across the entire Western US…almost word for word…

Cubin did the same thing I’ve heard her do several times now while working television coverage of these political races….blowing smoke….standing on a not so hot 12 year career..with NO goals of what she WILL be doing for our state.

The other REPUB candidates (gov, dept of edu, etc, etc) all gave somewhat lukewarm speechs, and the crowd (less then expected I heard), was there for the sparkly lights and big names, but little else.

As we were heading to the satellite truck to power up for the day, we passed a block long procession of protestors marching toward the high school from a couple of blocks away. I got some handy cam video of them as we passed.

A few got in…and one was forcibly carried out…after interrupting Cheney a couple of times with screams of FASCIST!

Sheesh…..

What a frikkin’ day…

That’s the world of political posturing, main stream media, and little people….

…all rolled into one hour long, tripe filled, security laden, vomit smelling, and incredibly intense Saturday morning in Wyoming.

Less you think I am anti-republican, anti-Cheney, or anti-anything, let me say this…

I am an INDEPENDENT.

I vote for the MOST qualified, intelligent, and trained person for the options available. I am a Constitutionalist, and have been for a long time.

But, you just have to see some things for yourself to make that final decision on WHO deserves…ney….EARNS your vote.

AND, for the love of ALL that is great and just in our country…PLEASE vote this Tuesday.

THIS is what our men and women in uniform the world over, have paid for with their blood, and lives, ever since the founding of our nation.

Each of us is welcome to our own choices, decisions, and lives…

Voting is how we help shape our own futures, and the futures of all that come after us.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for those posting on this thread in shows of support…I appreciate it…

Rich

Hi Team,

Just got asked to join Wyoming Public TV crew again for a romp down in Laramie, at Univ. of Wyo.

Cheney is going to be stumping for Cubin….(yech…I REALLY don’t like her )

http://www.house.gov/cubin/index.shtml

because of this….

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2006/10/24/….txt

( I was in the room after this broadcast, and heard her … )

and the Repubs NEED to keep the house….

We’ll have the satellite truck and broadcast it live…to the world…again…

funfunfun.

Anyways, though you might like to know…

I’ll say high for ya’ll…

This article is disturbing in so many ways. But, what it comes down to is that we, the USA, are forecasting a future attack plan (undoubtedly one of many) to a nation which truly is a threat to world security. This article shares way too much info that *I* think would best be left unpublished in open source publications.

What can you do? Bush seems to have a BIT too much worry about Ahmadinejad and Iran’s leaders plans after they start enriching uranium. It COULD be a problem…but it is NOT right now.

We’ll just have to see how this plays out, I suppose.

Fair Use Applies…

Source

THE IRAN PLANS
Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2006-04-17
Posted 2006-04-10

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

American and European intelligence agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. But there are widely differing estimates of how long that will take, and whether diplomacy, sanctions, or military action is the best way to prevent it. Iran insists that its research is for peaceful use only, in keeping with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it will not be delayed or deterred.

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”

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THE IRAN PLANS

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So, I was hanging out with Vice President Cheney the other day…

…and he didn’t shoot me…or anyone else…

A first hand report on Cheney’s First Public Speech…since…”The Shooting”…
By Rich Fleetwood

The events of Friday, February 17th, 2006, in Cheyenne, Wyoming went off without a hitch at the State Capital Building for me, Wyoming Public TV (based here at Central Wyoming College), and the rest of the state.

It was a big day. VP Cheney came to town…to give a little speech, here in his home state of Wyoming. Stood right there on the floor of the State of Wyoming House of Representatives, and reminisced about his years in Wyoming, with his high school and college years, his first baby steps in politics as an intern for Senator Al Simpson in the State House, his many trips to Washington and powering up the political ladder, and many other personal and sometimes a bit private memories. Thankfully, he didn’t drop off first at F.E. Warren Air Force base…where one of the largest Nuclear Missile Commands in the world, with siloes all round us, resides on the west side of town here in Cheyenne…to load up for bear…or any other small furry mammals.

And, he started it all off by letting the world know that his target…er..um…his friend, Harry Whittington was doing fine and up and around (he was in fact giving his own short news conferenence at almost the same time down Texas way). Of course, all this is old news to the world THIS week.

But, last week, the media WORLD was hanging on a thread…waiting…salivating…tensed to pounce…on what Cheney’s words MIGHT be, in this…his FIRST public speech since the near fatal wounding…ok..the attempted..er…uhm…the “accidental” wounding…of Harry, the Lawyer…which gets me to thinking of that old Shakesperean quote,

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” [Henry VI, Part 2]”

..sorry, disregard that quote…a bit off topic…back to the story.

So…There we were, Wyoming Public TV, with our big, shiny, and packed satellite truck, parked all by its lonesome on the private driveway to the back door of the Capital Building…

The street in front of the capital building is lined with over a DOZEN other satellite news and microwave trucks. Reporters with cameras working for CNN, FOX, NBC, and many more media wonks are lined up and down the sidewalk doing their pre-rolls and other B-roll stuff.

A couple of the biggies have run cables across the grounds to our truck, as their video feed to THEIR networks and stations, for this event, are coming DIRECTLY from us. Our WPTV cameras are literally going to be feeding the event live to satellite…to the rest of the world….wowsers…THIS is ONE of the reasons I decided to go into media…

As my previous posting states, we had it all set up and ready Thursday night. Cameras and cables and audio installed and tested by 10pm. Everything’s good. Time for dinner and a short night of sleep. We have to be back at the capital at 6:30am Friday morning for the secret service to scan and sweep the truck.

Up at 5am…a quick breakfast, with a pissy waitress at the Little America hotel on I-80. We jump in the CWC Vans and zoom on over to the Capital Building. The two other WPTV employees that are going inside with me, Jackie D. and Kyle N., the station’s main producer/director, go through the entire security process…wands, dogs, and not quite friskings…in the main entrance area near where the truck is parked.

We head upstairs and onto the house floor, to power up cameras, check the audio and video connections, and make sure all cable runs are securely taped down. We’re in for a few minutes and see all is well, and then the secret service empties the east wing of the Capital to do a final sweep.

Did I mention it was FREEZING yet? The high temperature of the day is only minus 9 degrees. Teeth are already chattering…I’m wearing slacks and a sport coat and tie…required of anyone who’s going to be in the House chamber…not enough to stay warm.

I hang out in the satellite truck for the hour or so while the sweep is going on, while the rest of the crew is doing some prep work in the other building next door for our televised legislative report at seven this evening. It’s an interesting period of time.

All I will say is this…the truck was hot..the cameras were on…and security was doing their job on the House floor. Very interesting stuff…and only *I* got to watch. (I’ll share a little video clip later. One of the unfortunate issues with doing this is that I couldn’t take my Sony Handicam into the building…a rule against electronic devices is being enforced…drats).

Later, we’re heading back inside…sweep is done, and ALL the state congressmen, senators, legislator wives, and a few more folks, are on the second floor…lined up dozens deep…going through the security process all over again, more wands…a metal detector to walk through with lots of pretty flashing lights..and many visible, and not quite visible, weapons…just in case.

Finally, we’re inside the huge room of the House…I go to my television camera, set up on the second floor, and put my headphones on. Kyle and Jackie do the same. And we wait…for over an hour.

Each of us, during that time, get checked more than once for our photo ID, by the secret service, and are ok’ed again. Finally, a few minutes late, the entourage shows up, the crowd gets REAL quiet…and about 5 minutes later, the show starts…and the rest is history.

Cheney’s speech came off well. Our coverage and camera work came off beatifully. Our WPTV logo soared around the world in news clips for the next 24 hours, as reference was made to the speech by media wonks on every continent.

And Cheney DIDN’T resign…as many folks were thinking might happen.

No, I didn’t “really” get to PERSONALLY hang with him, since I was on the second floor. But, Kyle ALMOST got to shake his hand, while running the camera from the back of the house floor, next to the walkway between the seats Cheney strode down glad-handing all the congressmen as he headed out to catch the next flight out of Cheyenne, for places much more populated.

One can only assume that he had more hunting on his mind…possibly using the mini-guns mounted under the wings of Air Force 2, to strafe unsuspecting pronghorn antelope on the windswept plains of central Wyoming.

Here is the coolest part of this whole entire event for me…I did get to be the hands running the camera for the wide overhead camera shots of one of the most powerful men in the world…as he shakes off a bad week, and comes out ready to get to work again.

The world is being seen TRULY through my eyes, as I keep the television camera aimed and focused, with my unwavoring hands of steel, and the confident gaze of a trained broadcasting graduate playing his small role in the earth shattering (not) din of a SLOW news day, keeping the little hash camera aiming marks on the black and white video screen on top of my camera centered…just like that laser powered scope on Cheney’s quail gun.

In other words, the week, and day, from hell for me, in getting down to Cheyenne to take part in this event, was all worth the pain and tears. It was a world changing day for me…and for Cheney, as well as for Wyoming.

As soon as Cheney left, the crew and I went to work immediately. We tore down the cameras and tripods, ripped up the taped down cables, rolled things up and move the whole shebang next door, and setup an entire set with painted backgrounds, four cameras, 6 wired mikes, and a full bank of lighting kits…to prepare for the evening’s live broadcast of the Legislative Report on Wyoming’s Budget Session, all in one of the Hearing Rooms in the Herschner Building.

Later that night, after the Legislative Report was broadcast, we packed up the truck, rolled up HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of feet of audio and video cable, moved the truck to its assigned parking space behind the Capital building, and lock everything up. Teeth are chattering like beavers in a fresh pine forest.

The temperature is down to minus 28…and we are literally freezing to death in mere moments…finally finishing everything right before the first death occurs…and we head out to eat at the Outback Steakhouse near I-25 and I-80…to warm our innards AND our out-tards back to health.

Sheesh…I strongly dislike extremely cold winter weather in Wyoming! You know it’s cold when you try to talk to someone, your words come out and freeze in mid air and fall to the ground, and you have to pick them up and take them inside to thaw them out…to finish the conversation…

Let’s see how things go from here on out for him, and us…

Rich

…from the Red Cross. Yes…THAT Red Cross…

Seems that a handful of files I have been offering for download for many years (since 2002) has offended them. The files were received, in good faith, from a team member of the Witchita Falls Emergency Management Agency many moons before 2002, on CD for me to share with the world via my website.

I even put them on my first CD rom publication in 2002, after checking with my local chapter of the Red Cross in Worland, Wyoming, and getting their permission after they viewed the entire CD. After that, my CD master disk had to go through a copyright check before thousands of copies were made at cost, to be GIVEN AWAY by a good friend of mine in the preparedness business. The manufacturer went through every file, and found NO copyright issues.

Now, here some 3 years later, the Red Cross has “caught up” with me (literally…the envelope contained copies of letters sent [and returned] by the USPS in Nov. 2004, and July 2005. They want me to remove 133 files from the CD master. View the actual letter here.

I sent a nice return email to the Office of General Counsel of the Red Cross asking clarification of exactly what they were saying…

What I didn’t include was some rude, crude, and socially unacceptable comments about how the Red Cross seems to steal, lose, or otherwise screw people out of their hard earned money, even to the point of STEALING services and REFUSING TO PAY ANYTHING for use of equipment they used and abused after signing contracts stating they would be responsible for…

For example, a good friend of mine, “Alfie”, is based in the DC area. He has had personal dealings with these folks, who have their “ivory tower”, a huge headquarters in Merrifield (where their letter was postmarked from, incidentally). He shared the following with me…

“Alfie” recommends I pursue this hard…if the Red Cross decides to rain down their own little game of terrorism on a poor, hard working family man who is paying his own way, as well as for his wife and two kids, through full time college at the same time.

“Alfie” suggest that I follow through and consider these options…

“Alfie”, I have to agree with you. I have done NOTHING but HELP get these life saving documents into the hands of tens of thousands of Americans in the past 4 years since the events of September 11th, 2001. I’ve shared over 600 gigabytes of files with 700,000 unique visitors in that same time, and ALL on my own dime.

If I have to redo the CD…no problem. If I have to remove the files from my site, no problem. I’ll just do it.

If I have to go to the mass media…main stream media…underground media…to let the world know that the Red Cross…the agency so many millions of Americans have come to WANT to depend on…DOES NOT want to share life saving information as WIDELY and OPENLY as possible, well…I’ll just have to do that as well.

Want to see the files for youself? Check out the file set here… I also have all the files from the 1998 FEMA CD Rom titled Fema Disaster Preparedness & Mitigation Library • 1998 edition also on the site. They are also all available for free.

The REDCROSS files use less than 27 megabytes of space. The FEMA CD rom file set use just over 33 megabytes. The PDF navigation fails to work for the FEMA file set, but I have a php script that lists every file in the set, on the server and creates a browser link to the file.

Both of these sets have been COMPLETELY free for every visitor to the site.

I state on the CD set that I sell, that I only ask payment for the many dozens of files *I* have created over the years, and NOT for the rest of the government and preparedness digital files that I have added to the set, to compile in one place, a massive collection of over 19,000 pages of survival and preparedness information. From Day One of this online project, it has been about SHARING the info…not making a profit.

Please read the letter as it was received, and see if you can detect any goodwill from the Red Cross. I am concerned for their actions. I will post any reply I receive from them, here.

Support your local Red Cross chapter….somehow….

I’ll be removing the files in question from the RED CROSS folder of SurvivalRing.org, as well as the directory on the Civil Defense Now Ultimate Digital Library CD Number One, and putting the excised files into their own unique directory, and a statement to the effect that the RED CROSS does not, and has never created, supported, or is in any way connected with the files in question.

Joy to the world, my friends….