Opinions on Nuclear Power Waste?

Personally, I'd guess that about 20% of Americans are descended from slave owners/holders. Since the first slaves arrived in 1610, we have almost twenty generations of interbreeding. A far higher percentage of blacks probably have such blood than whites--representing rape, or at least sexual harrassment in the extreme. I don't have the math to work this out, but a snapshot of 1860 (1.4%) of Americans would hardly tell the story. I would love to see a well-thought out study here.

That said, I have no sense that someone descended from slaves should feel guilty about it. In fact, I don't hold slavery against the slave owners themselves. I don't blame people for being in synche with their social zeitgeist. I do, however, have great respect for the people who could rise above it. Jefferson wasn't a toad because he didn't free his slaves. He was just a typical landowner. Given that you "own" human beings, my scorn would be reserved for acts of unusual cruelty: torture, murder, forcible rape, etc. Anyone who has read "Lion's Blood" knows that I consider the capacity for self-delusion and cruelty to be as hard-wired as the capacity for kindness and clarity. And that, given the ability to exert power over other human beings, most men and women would find it difficult to go against the cultural current...to fail to oppose slavery, even if they themselves did not own one.

So...no guilt. Humans are just critters, after all. The only thing that irritates me is when people do the "it happened so long ago. What difference does it make?" Which strikes me as ignorant and/or hypocritical in the extreme. So I do tend to point out that the playing field is far from level, but I don't expect white folks to do anything new about it. Similarly, I have no tolerance for blacks who claim it is impossible to get ahead, etc. There are simply too many role models of people who have done just that. Hard to think of an arena in which there is not now a wonderful role model of possibility. My own life would have been very different if, for instance, I'd been able to read Steven Barnes novels growing up. I'm not sure what more we can do as human beings except try not to fall into the traps that snared our parents, and try to make the world a little better for our children.

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But I could NOT think less of whites without thinking less of humanity as a whole. And that I have neither the inclination or the temperament to do. We all feel alone and afraid, and the ways that cope with this are often rather ugly...but sometimes absolutely wonderful.

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Who out there knows enough about nuclear power to comment from a technical point of view? It has always seemed that the more scientifically educated people in my circle tended toward belief that we could handle it effectively. That sways me. On the other hand, there do seem to be serious issues about dealing with waste. That single concern strikes me as the most valid criticism. Pleading ignorance, I would request that those who have informed opinions about this issue, pro and con, place their arguments before us.

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Performed the first 4 days of TacFit as of yesterday, and back on Recovery today. It is FIERCE stuff. This is fitness at the level of warrior-readiness, something very different from even professional athletics. Olympic or professional athletes operate in the arena of the known, with rules and expectations about the type of fitness that will be required, and a manageable maximum penalty for failure. SWAT, firemen, police, military and especially SpecOps, must deal with chaos in the rawest form, and the requirements not only for "fitness" but intelligent spontaneous adaptation to hazardous environments is about survival, not championship rings. Even "functional fitness" (like, for instance, most Kettlebell programs) does not address this in the same way. By sequencing his programs to become increasingly complex rather than just doing more, harder, longer, we are dealing with the body-mind connection in an extremely powerful way. Improving proprioception increases data intake from the environment. Learning to re-orient after unexpected collision or other multipliers literally exercises the mind, not "merely" the body. What we have here, and what I have seen from the beginning of my relationship with Scott, was the same thing I was aiming at with the "rubber band" exercises in my novels of Aubry Knight, or the "Self-Directed Human Evolution" concept I've been working on for twenty-five years--approached through the physical doorway. Because TacFit is based in part on the Six Degrees of Freedom model, which in turn comes out of Shadow Yoga...combined with the idea from Hawaiian Huna that the body acts like a "black bag" for unprocessed emotions...man, the possibility just screams at me that when you return your body to its "original manufacturer specifications"--in other words, the movement options you had as a child--you must release the fear, rage, and grief we bond into our bodies. This in turn would effect perceptual filters. We approach the ideal of the energy, aliveness and 360 degree input of a child--with the wisdom of an elder (or at least adult.) This, in many ways, is as good as human existence can get. And because the machine language of the human nervous system is "survive. Move away from pain" and you can test this with the simple expedient of trying to hold your breath until you die. Can't do it, no matter how depressed you are. The hind brain will render you unconscious and go right on breathing. That implies to me that you can stand squarely on your right to live and breathe and reduce the pain in your existence.

The "Be Breathed" exercise is the simplest way I've ever seen. I've been in meditation and spiritual circles where it took them YEARS to teach techniques no more effective. If you expose yourself to all three streams of basic life stress (finding a mate, providing food and shelter, maintaining life and health) and you use breathing as a way of preventing stress from becoming strain...

Wow. Let me make it clear: in no way am I saying that this is the only path, or even the best. But it is astoundingly clear to me. The path is more solid than anything I've seen in a lifetime of searching. After all, if you strive along this path and I'm 100% wrong, the worst case scenario is that you end up happy, healthy, and loved. Not so bad. Seeing the rocks under the surface of the water doesn't mean there aren't bridges down the way. But after forty years of seeking, I have lost count of the bodies of the broken along the spiritual path. People who lost families, health, and fortune and ended up with nothing. Or people who sought intellectual knowledge and ended up alone and broken, never understanding that general knowledge has little to do with success or happiness. Or people who thought that if they just won that championship, or earned that black belt, they would finally be content with life. So sad.

One of the things I love about Connirae Andreas' "Core Transformation" work is that it shows clearly that if you BEGIN with the emotions you think you will get at the END, you experience life as transformative and ineffably beautiful and mysterious. You can get this starting with the heart space--feeling love for all people. You can get there from survival--learning to deal with death, sex, power, and fear. But you cannot do it working from your head down. It just doesn't work. Never seen it, not even once. Known lots of people who thought they could, but every single one of them broke at some point. The lucky ones were able to re-constitute their lives. The unlucky ones...jeeze, it is just too sad. My obsession with balance should tell you something about what I've seen in this sense, but I just can't go into it. Knowing good, decent, sweet, intelligent people who are alone, sick, and on the edge of absolute poverty just because they thought life could be negotiated with the mind "alone." Life is simply too complex to "figure out," but it can be experienced authentically, and honestly, with eyes open. The vast majority of what people talk about when they say "enlightenment" is no more than this.