My mental jukebox (Neil Peart expression) has been playing The Manhattan Project by Rush all day since I watched Oppenheimer.
I found the film profound and disturbing and since 1945 we have lived in a time and place where we know that humans have the potential and technological capability to destroy the world with nuclear weapons.
Oppenheimer told the Enola Gay pilot that there was a possibility of his plane vaporizing when he dropped the bomb but they still went ahead and dropped them on two Japanese cities killing hundreds of thousands of people, Japan surrendering and a end to WW2.
Canadian Prog Rock band Rush who I have seen twice and mentioned on here lots of times recorded The Manhattan Project on their Power Windows album. Neil Peart the Rush drummer penned the lyrics:
I think this song would have made a brilliant soundtrack for the film. Incidentally the lead actor in the film was born in Douglas, Cork in Ireland's biggest county and where we reside.
Ireland is nuclear free. I wish other countries were the same.
New Zealand is also a nuclear free zone - enacted in legislation since 1987. We got dumped out of ANZUS military alliance as a result (not that a tiny country like nz would have contributed much to that).
ReplyDeleteGood on the Kiwis Tigger's Mum. Australia and New Zealand are said to be the most favoured destinations to live if there ever is a nuclear war. Antarctica and Mongolia also do not have nuclear weapons. I once read that the amount of money the West spends on nuclear weapons in a fortnight would eradicate poverty and starvation forever.
ReplyDeleteWe are also nuclear free but that won't stop us from being vapourised if anyone drops a bomb on England I suppose.
ReplyDeleteTrue JayCee. Time to get out the Protect and Survive handbook out, paint everything with white emulsion and hide under the kitchen table me thinks? Gosh that film made me feel depressed. Brilliant acting all round.
ReplyDeleteSo if there is ever a nuclear war we will be over run with people escaping their countries? Yikes. Our interior is largely not suitable for habitation, dusty, dry and with very little water. They'd better plan to go elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThere aren't many other options River.
ReplyDeleteMars.
DeleteHG Wells wrote about travelling there and David Bowie sang about life on Mars.
DeleteDouglas is on The Isle of Man where Lady JayCee Ponsonby-Smythe resides with her noble spouse. It's not in Cork! Maybe your brain has been addled by radiation... either that or all the many gallons of Newcastle Brown you have supped in your sixty years.
ReplyDeleteDouglas is a suburb of Cork city YP. I wish I could purchase NB here in West Cork but since Brexit it's not been possible to buy any down here. Unfortunately Carlsberg is my tipple these days.
ReplyDelete