Bad news in cubeland today. The son of the guy two cubes down from me was diagnosed with some very bad mojo (I still don't know the scope, but it didn't sound good). Being a native of the area, when I heard the news, my mind immediately jumped to this. (1, 2) It's about a mile and a half from my office, maybe three miles from where I grew up, and about five blocks from where my dad grew up. I even remember my family nervously gathering to watch the 60 Minutes piece.

The nasty part of this is that it's not something where you can lay blame anywhere. When they built the plant, and ran it for decades, they didn't have any ideas about radiation. They couldn't, it was far too new an idea, much less an application. And if you were still insistent, if you really want to point fingers, those who would be your targets have long since passed to the earth. They cleaned it up, sealed it up and it became invisible, a million miles off the main drag being the same as three blocks. Until something like today happens. You can't prove this was to blame, but you can't disprove it either. If you aren't thinking hard, it just becomes a convenient scapegoat, a crutch. There's no more risk, no less risk, here than anywhere else any more, I've seen the numbers, I've worked in the industry. And yet I have that playing in my head, wanting to make a connection that I know isn't there, and wanting to pin it on something more than chance.