gotsnowgotslush
skates like Eck
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The bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 killed thousands instantly and about 140,000 by the end of the year. Nagasaki was hit on 9 August and Japan surrendered six days later.
Sunao Tsuboi, 90 years old
“That America was the first to drop the bomb is a matter of historical fact, but if you keep insisting on an apology and it doesn’t come, then how are we ever going to join hands and make progress on nuclear disarmament?” added Tsuboi, who remained unconscious in hospital after the blast until more than a month after Japan’s surrender on 15 August 1945
“The nuclear age came about because something had gone seriously wrong with humankind as a whole, not just with the US.
The passage of time has softened attitudes towards the US among the remaining survivors, according to Tsuboi. “In the past, 90% of us would have been horrified by the prospect of a visit by the US president,” he said.
“I hated Americans for 30 years. Then I started going there and meeting people, and I realised that I had been deceived by Japanese militarism. We survivors are all getting old now, so we want to see progress towards the abolition of nuclear weapons before we die. I will repeat that demand until the day my heart stops beating.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...pen-horrors-barack-obama-historic-visit-japan
In a solemn ceremony, Obama — the first sitting U.S. president to visit the once-destroyed city — along with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, arrived at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park late Friday afternoon to bright sunshine that gradually gave way to a cool evening. Thick crowds jammed the periphery of the park, but it was otherwise quiet as Obama and Abe toured the Peace Memorial Museum and laid wreaths at the cenotaph.
“Seventy-one years ago, on a bright, cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city, and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself. Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in the not-so-distant past,” Obama said in prepared remarks.
Following his speech, which preceded remarks given by Abe, the two leaders met with three hibakusha who had been invited by the Japanese government, shaking hands and offering words. At one point, the president hugged one of the hibakusha.
The U.S. president also invited Shigeaki Mori, another hibakusha, who conducted research on the 12 Americans who perished in the atomic bombing. Mori’s efforts became a film known as “Paper Lanterns,” and was recently released.
Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters afterward that Sunao Tsuboi, 91, a hibakusha, told the president that he welcomed and thanked him for his visit. Tsuboi also said he felt he became younger just listening to the president’s words about the right to the pursuit of happiness, and that he, too, wanted to work with Obama for a world without nuclear weapons, even after the president leaves office early next year.
Abe also thanked Obama.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...ays-historic-visit-to-hiroshima/#.V0iMbnopAv5
"...they have also found shadows of people but not their bodies (which were instantly vaporized by the heat of the explosion."
http://www.neatorama.com/2007/01/09/nuclear-shadows-in-hiroshima/
gsgs comment-
President Obama made a solemn visit to Japan
The shadow has lain there, ever since the vaporization of the body
The choking, coughing, the ashes of the dead on the tongue
The bodies of the burned, floating in the water
The skin slips off the arms of the girl
and into the hands of the boatman
his eyes widen, he stands in shock
she slips back into the water
her screams
her pain
her cries
Sunao Tsuboi, 90 years old
“That America was the first to drop the bomb is a matter of historical fact, but if you keep insisting on an apology and it doesn’t come, then how are we ever going to join hands and make progress on nuclear disarmament?” added Tsuboi, who remained unconscious in hospital after the blast until more than a month after Japan’s surrender on 15 August 1945
“The nuclear age came about because something had gone seriously wrong with humankind as a whole, not just with the US.
The passage of time has softened attitudes towards the US among the remaining survivors, according to Tsuboi. “In the past, 90% of us would have been horrified by the prospect of a visit by the US president,” he said.
“I hated Americans for 30 years. Then I started going there and meeting people, and I realised that I had been deceived by Japanese militarism. We survivors are all getting old now, so we want to see progress towards the abolition of nuclear weapons before we die. I will repeat that demand until the day my heart stops beating.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...pen-horrors-barack-obama-historic-visit-japan
In a solemn ceremony, Obama — the first sitting U.S. president to visit the once-destroyed city — along with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, arrived at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park late Friday afternoon to bright sunshine that gradually gave way to a cool evening. Thick crowds jammed the periphery of the park, but it was otherwise quiet as Obama and Abe toured the Peace Memorial Museum and laid wreaths at the cenotaph.
“Seventy-one years ago, on a bright, cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed. A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city, and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself. Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder a terrible force unleashed in the not-so-distant past,” Obama said in prepared remarks.
Following his speech, which preceded remarks given by Abe, the two leaders met with three hibakusha who had been invited by the Japanese government, shaking hands and offering words. At one point, the president hugged one of the hibakusha.
The U.S. president also invited Shigeaki Mori, another hibakusha, who conducted research on the 12 Americans who perished in the atomic bombing. Mori’s efforts became a film known as “Paper Lanterns,” and was recently released.
Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters afterward that Sunao Tsuboi, 91, a hibakusha, told the president that he welcomed and thanked him for his visit. Tsuboi also said he felt he became younger just listening to the president’s words about the right to the pursuit of happiness, and that he, too, wanted to work with Obama for a world without nuclear weapons, even after the president leaves office early next year.
Abe also thanked Obama.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/20...ays-historic-visit-to-hiroshima/#.V0iMbnopAv5
"...they have also found shadows of people but not their bodies (which were instantly vaporized by the heat of the explosion."
http://www.neatorama.com/2007/01/09/nuclear-shadows-in-hiroshima/
gsgs comment-
President Obama made a solemn visit to Japan
The shadow has lain there, ever since the vaporization of the body
The choking, coughing, the ashes of the dead on the tongue
The bodies of the burned, floating in the water
The skin slips off the arms of the girl
and into the hands of the boatman
his eyes widen, he stands in shock
she slips back into the water
her screams
her pain
her cries