For the last couple of nights now, I have been watching a documentary called "White Light, Black Rain". It details the aftermath of the atomic bombs dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan in 1945; events which brought about the near immediate end of World War II.

 I got to hear first person accounts from people who actually survived the bomb: some were near ground zero which is amazing considering following the initial blasts, winds of 1,000 MPH were created and temperatures rose to near 9,000 degrees. Some people were instantly vaporized due to the intense heat.

 Most of the survivors were children who grew up orphans with various medical conditions. One man they profiled you could see through his rib cage and watch his beating heart. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction and I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

 I finally got through the final part of the documentary last night and when it was over I sat there and just thought for a while. Was the use of the atomic bomb the savior of mankind or the worst example of Pandora's Box one could imagine. I know bringing the War with Japan to an end saved thousands of Americans lives. But those who died in the atomic blasts...their lives had value too. Japan lost the war and they lost it in the worst possible way by being on the receiving end of two weapons whose power was like the sun.

 One woman told of finding her mother's dead body lying on the street and when she tried to touch the body it dissolved like dust. Another man recalls being thrown through a wall of his home and waking up with the skin of his arm lying next to him in the street. People were inflicted with the most horrible kinds of blisters. Blindness. Some eventually Cancer and Leukemia. Kids lost parents. Parents lost kids. One woman who lived in a Catholic orphange says she woke up after the blast to find a baby had somehow been decapitated. And following the blast, people were mystified by white blotches which had ended up on sidewalks, streets, et cetera. Turns out the white blotches were all that were left from bodies which had entirely burned up from the heat of the explosion. It all sounds like the literal definition of Hell.

 The filmmakers spoke to some of the men who served on the airplanes which dropped the bombs. All of them said they felt no guilt, had no nightmares, respected the loss of life but it did not haunt them. How could it not? One crew member, who spoke on film in 1955, expressed the only true remorse I heard from any of the crew members interviewed. He says when they dropped the bomb and saw the mushroom cloud and the circle of devestation below, he could only mutter out loud "My God, what have we done."

 Those blasts 63 years ago opened the door for nuclear terrorism. Most nations in the world now have atomic weapons technology. The wrong weapon in the wrong hands means we could easily live this horror all over again.

 Quote Of The Day: "Some people imagine that nuclear war will mean instant and painless death. But for millions this will not be the case. The accounts of the injured at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and of the doctors who tried to tend them, witness to the horrors and torments which would be magnified thousands of times over in the kinds of attacks we analyse here..." Stan Openshaw

 This Day In History: 'The Wizard Of Oz' premiered in Hollywood on this date, August 15th, 1939.

 Something you should check out: I'm in the mood for a little Duran Duran as the weekend approaches. Here's "View To A Kill" from 1985 (23 YEARS AGO!?!?)