by John Wilcock

BAN NUKES! was a slogan with which all those of a certain age became more than familiar half a century ago. The quest was doomed to failure, of course, in a world where progress and profit will always overcome idealism.

Notwithstanding the 1986 Ukrainian Chernobyl disaster, which devastated a huge region and caused the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people, and the more recent Japanese catastrophe, nuclear development is expanding, and the US increasingly seems behind the curve with no new reactor built for 25 years.

“If you ever wanted to see a nation clinging pathetically to its past accomplishments while the world passed it by,” writes William Tucker, “take a look at the US and today’s nuclear technology.” Tucker’s book, with its self-sufficient title Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America’s Energy Odyssey, emphasizes that this country is not only falling behind other nations, but is “losing the advantage in new technologies.” In China, six new reactors (made by Westinghouse) have just come on line; Korea, with 23 reactors since 1990 providing 45% of its electricity, plans to build 16 more; the Russians are building reactors in half a dozen countries including India and, unfortunately, Iran. Russia has also offered to take everybody’s nuclear waste and process it into fuel, the way France has been doing it for 20 years. (Why do we need a mountain in which to hide it?)

Tucker makes known that a single 125-megawatt reactor — the size of a garden shed — could power a town of 70,000 people and be buried deep under a building, but because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission “is notorious for foot-dragging,” such a development may be ten years ahead. And 60 years ago, he writes, when the US had a choice of generating nuclear fission from thorium, which is much less threatening than uranium, they chose the latter because the military needed to make plenty of bombs.

EUROPE’S OLDEST COOKBOOK will get a work-out at the Getty Villa next week when the “delicately flavored dishes” of Archestratus will be plucked and cooked from his ancient volume and served to guests who’ve paid $125 each for dinner. The Life of Luxury was written by the Sicilian Greek author from Gela in 350BC but only about 300 lines of his poetic epic have been preserved, such as “Parrotfish should be coated in cheese, seasoned with cumin and baked whole. But fine oily fish needs only a sprinkle of salt and oil, for they possess in themselves the fullness of delight.” Fish, along with pulses (beans, peas, lentils) and such additions as figs and onions, were his preferred ingredients (ancient gourmets felt

that meat was barbaric) and Archestratus, being a travel writer, often listed sources for his preferences (“And if you come to the holy city of famous Byzantion, I urge you again to eat a steak of peak-season tuna; for it is very good and soft.”) Described by his contemporary, Athenaeus, as having “sailed round the inhabited world for the sake of his belly,”  he left us with five golden rules: (1) Use raw food materials of good quality; (2) Combine them harmoniously; (3) Avoid hot sauces and spices; (4) Prefer lighter sauces to enjoy the meal; and (5) Use spices moderately, so as to not interfere with natural flavors. They still seem applicable today.

THE NEW SEASON of Breaking Bad, its seventh and last, begins on August 11 and Los Angeles magazine says it’s become so addictive that “nobody can imagine life without it.” The show tells a story that — from Christopher Marlowe’s Elizabethan plays to the Godfather — is central to Western civilization, the mag maintains: A man who gains the world but loses his soul. Producer Vince Gilligan says: “For six years I’ve been engaged in a long slow chess match with Walter White, always examining hundreds of permutations and possibilities. And I don’t really play chess, so it’s been exhausting.” Walter White, of course, is triple Emmy winner Bryan Cranston, 57, who evolves from mild-mannered mathematics teacher to maniacal meth dealer. The LAmag piece talks about how closely show runner Gilligan works with his writers, and how receptive he is to new suggestions.

UNTUTORED POLITICIANS have mistaken “prestige and hype, for skill and sensitivity” by hiring Frank O. Gehry — “the most flattered architect in the world” — to enact the new memorial to Dwight Eisenhower near Washington’s Capitol Hill, claims Andrew Ferguson. Writing in the weekly Standard, he charges the $142million project is “weirdly claustrophobic …at once grandiose and trivial.” Criticism began when the design for the four-acre memorial was announced last year, regarded by some as too elaborate and extravagant. Utah’s Republican congressman Rob Bishop hopes to make the whole thing history. He has introduced a bill to start over, a nationwide competition for a more modest and less expensive design. The magazine comments that Gehry and the commissioners have been “shell-shocked by the public outcry.”

“The Communists who run China picture themselves as above the rest of society — as the best men, a superman society, They believe they are made of special materials. That is their own words. They’re elite. They tell you only what they want to tell you. So of course you will never get any clear answer about any event that happened in the past 60 years…They should trust the people. They should explain and discuss and negotiate.”
— internationally-admired artist Ai Weiwei, still barred by his government from leaving China, talking to Playboy

BRITBITS: After clicking on www.arteverywhere.org.uk to view 100 examples of fine art, viewers can vote for the ones that will go on display across London next month on 15,000 billboards financed by the poster industry….“Daniel Radcliffe, 24, is modest. He’s reported to be worth more than £50million, but he’s got a keen sense of self-mockery and he’s really good company,” writes Molly Guinness in the Spectator…..John Milton (1608-74 ), who received only £10 in royalties for Paradise Lost, is competing with Jane Austen to replace Charles Dickens on the new £10 note….There is still a huge division between the wealth of North and South in England, reports the Office for National Statistics which found the median household worth to be £220,000 in the Northeast, compared with £433,000 in the country’s Southeast.…. Vice is vanishing in England, claims Leo McKinstry in the Spectator, with Home Office statistics showing drug use at its lowest level since 1966 and prostitutes having to lower their prices because of dwindling demand…..Under British law, writes Spectator columnist Charles Moore, sexual intercourse with another male in a same-sex marriage will not be regarded as adultery, whereas with a female it would be….A woman in Oxfordshire sent an e-mail to her local fire station to report a fire. Fortunately, somebody also called 911 minutes later….. Radio personality Terry Wogan suggested that the French reputation for gastronomy was overrated. On his recent visit to Lyon, he’d found the famed bouchons (traditional eateries) to be mediocre, and at least half French mothers surveyed stuck a ready-made meal in the microwave for dinner instead of doing any cooking.

GOODBYE MIAMI headlines a Rolling Stone piece which predicts that rising seas are destined to turn the Florida city into “an American Atlantis,” a fate about which the state’s politicians are almost universally in denial. “Miami as we know it today is doomed,” says Harold Wanless, a U of Miami geological science professor. “It’s not a question of if, it’s when.” Half of the area that surrounds the city is a mere four or five feet above sea level and, as in the rest of southern Florida, the most valuable real estate sits right at water’s edge. More than $416bn in assets is at risk of storm-related flood damage and sea level rise according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which lists Miami as the number-one city worldwide most vulnerable in terms of property damage. But the number-one problem, says the mag, is that the statehouse in Tallahassee is a monument to climate-change denial. “You can’t even say the words climate change on the House floor without being run out of the building.” declares Tom Gustafson, a former speaker of the House.

THE WILCOCK WEB: TransCanada claims that its controversial Keystone XL pipeline, while creating havoc across half a dozen states, will create 9,000 jobs; the U.S. Department of State estimates 35…. For a teenager to lose his virginity to a horny teacher is a joyous educational experience, and the teacher should get a medal not a jail term…. … Pippa Middleton, sister of England’s future queen Kate, reported from Wimbledon on the ‘gruntometer’ which has rated Maria Sharapova at 101 decibels and Serena Williams at 88.9 decibels…. ….“The person who shall have done the most…for fraternity between nations” was Alfred Nobel’s description of who should win his annual prize and, as last year it went to the European Community. The 2013 prize should go to Google, suggests Wired… Chinese authorities are cracking down on the sale of plain white T-shirts having noticed how readily they can become subversive billboards….Two million smuggled cigarettes, which were found by Dutch border police, will be burned at a power station to provide energy….… Robotic lawn mowers that can be programmed to mow the lawn unaided on specific days were a big hit ($2200) at the recent Chelsea Flower Show…. As robots increasingly take over jobs of factory workers, traffic police, drivers, supermarket checkers, writes the Observer’s Will Hutton, what we can expect is “a dystopian world” in which good jobs will be “the preserve of an educated, computer-literate elite”…..With continued perseverance and a slice of luck, the SAC will eventually nail Steven A. Cohen, the greediest man in America, for insider trading….….A Bloomberg terminal costs $20,000 a year to rent, reports the Economist, and there are 315,000 of them in use throughout the world…. Among the items that Beyonce’s contract demands in her on-tour dressing room is an ample supply of red toilet paper…..The simplest way to reduce violence in prisons would be to allow hookers to visit…… If even a million people refused to pay their taxes — swore they’d go to jail first — until the big corporations paid what they really owed, even Congress would start discussing a change in the tax laws…“Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.” — Samuel Johnson (1709-84)

OTHER SCENES, my ‘60s underground paper, cost 25c on the newsstands, but I’ll pay 100 times that cover price — $25 — for any copy that you can dig up and mail to me at P.O. Box 1359, Ojai, CA. 93024