Not my typical post ...

I was reading an entry at Mental_Floss. Then I headed to Wikipedia to read more about radiation poisoning.

Because (1) I'm a geek and (2) I'm rather a morbid gal. I don't know why I tend to be ... but plagues, biology, stuff like that? I find it fascinating. I'm not good at dissection, though.

And, from radiation poisoning I find myself headed to reading about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

...

I don't have words for, nor can I even imagine, what happened. How it must have been to walk/crawl/be dragged or carried down those streets full of dying. Trying to quench your thirst with the black rain that couldn't put out the fires raging all around.

Sometimes ... sometimes I just don't *get* how we can do things like this to each other.

If you want to read more about the dropping of the atom bomb, mostly accounts given by the Hibakusha (those who were there at the bombings, mostly civilians ... working in office buildings or going to school that morning), here:

Hibakusha Video Interviews

Voice of Hibakusha

I once went to a remarkable website (and I can't find it right now) where you could do a virtual tour of the Genbaku dome (The Hiroshima Dome. They never repaired the damage it received from the bombing). It was really amazing.
Well, this site will have to do.

Still ... I like to think that we live in a wonderful world.
But then I'm so sobered by the actuality that things like this happen.
And it's not just this. There's the Holocaust. Genocides happening in more than one country. And then there's the crimes that happen so close to home. Child abuse. Rapes. Murders.

It's just not cool.
Or happy.
Or fun.

And I want the world to BE a happy, fun, wonderful place.
And dammit, it had BETTER be one for my children. And for all the children out there. And for all the people that ever were, at some point in their lives, children.

Yes, if I were to run as leader of the whole world, all crime would be illegal (and skateboarding? Not a crime. I'd do it ... if I weren't (1) OLD and (2) less-than-graceful). If you weren't nice, you'd get put in time out. Prisons would be the only place where fun wasn't allowed (well, except on Sundays. It's exhausting to not have any fun). Books would be another form of collateral and storytime would be required.

Naptime preceded by graham crackers and juice or milk would be a requirement of all workplaces. Capital punishment would consist of launching people into orbit via a giant cannon. Or something odd like that. And treating someone with less respect just because they're different than you (race/gender/nationality/age/whatever petty, shallow thing you can come up with)? That earns you a jaunt into the "Mocking Room," where a jury of your peers will taunt you within an inch of your sanity for the next Fifty years. Or ten minutes. Whichever comes first. Or until they get tired and start a round of "spastic Uno."

I just wish that people wouldn't be such punks to each other.
Then the world might just be that happy, happy, fun, fun, silly-willy place full of sunshine and rainbows where you don't have to worry about walking alone and being mugged or worse.
The kind of place that I'd really like it to be.