PLANET MOURNS PASSING OF “MOLLY” a.k.a. NANCY PRENDERGAST …BOMBING OF HIROSHIMA 67 YEARS LATER STILL RAISES THE QUESTION: DID WE HAVE TO DO IT? … DOES MORALITY TRUMP POLITICS? … EINSTEIN’S DEATH EQUATION: GOOD OR EVIL? JOIN THE DISCUSSION ON THE PLANET
By DAN VALENTI
PLANET VALENTI News and Commentary
(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, THURSDAY, AUG. 9, 2012) —THE PLANET shares this note, so thoughtfully passed along to us by DIOGENES.
Dan,
On a somber note, with unspeakable sadness and heartbreak, I must inform you of the passing away of one of your prolific posters, Molly / Nancy. A woman of prodigious intelligence and strength like I’ve rarely seen, the cancer finally beat her on Saturday morning, August 4, 2012. After 11 grueling years of almost superhuman bravery, she couldn’t fight back from the terrible thing that had been done to her, which had it been done correctly, could and should have given her years more of a good quality of life. She had a kind and generous heart and advocated for the protection of children and animals, both of which were very dear to her heart.
I post this here on The Planet because for many months she enjoyed doing research to back up her postings and voicing her opinions. She was outraged when Dan got sued and so pleased at the outcome of that debacle. posting was a great distraction from the pain she felt every day but wouldn’t give in to. Even her detractors on PV would get her charged up to fend them off. Nancy was a vibrant, unique, wonderful person who I will miss more and more each day and going on without her seems incomprehensible, I thought that Dan and some others, like Susan Moore, would want to know.
Rest in peace, little sister. you’ve certainly earned it.
—– 00 —–
THE PLANET extends our deepest condolences to “Molly’s” family, friends, and loved ones. We take solace that this website was able to offer her some distraction from her daily grind. Molly never failed to inform, enlighten, educate, and entertain. Her posts were well written and researched, and on more than one occasion, she set THE PLANET right when we misspoke or got something wrong. We agreed with joy and disagreed with respect.
We commend her soul to God’s great mercy.
P.S. MOLLY — Please tell St. Pete to leave the back door to heaven unlocked when it comes time for me to sneak in! We love you.
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HIROSHIMA WAS BAD ENOUGH … NAGASAKI WAS INEXCUSABLE
Monday marked the anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, by the United States. To this day, the United States remains the only country to employ nuclear weapons on innocent civilians, at Hiroshima and three days later at Nagasaki, Japan.
Child victim of the Nagasaki bombing.
THE PLANET understands the arguments for dropping the bomb, including the lives that were saved from the called-off invasion of the Japanese mainland. The bombs’ destructive power clearly won out over the Nipponese hardliners who argued for fighting to the last man. Our problem is this: The same thing would have been achieved by inviting Japan to witness the effects of the bomb in person in a non-fatal application, say, bombing a deserted island. President Harry Truman could have given the Japanese government five days to respond. If they did not surrender, then we would use the bomb against one of their cities.
Hiroshima Can be Debated, but with Nagasaki, We Have an Un-Prosecuted War Crime on Our Hands.
We did not do that. The U.S. bombed first and didn’t bother to ask questions later. We gave Japan, with its emeshed emperor-military tangle of government the U.S. apparently did not understand, less than two days from Hiroshima before deciding to use the bomb again. That was not enough time to allow the Japanese government to reach a decision regarding the continuance of the war.
As bad as the first blast was (“Little Boy”), the second (“Fat Man”) on Nagasaki goes down in history as an un-prosecuted war crime, far exceeding as a single action anything Adolph Hitler ever did. The best, most objective read of history tells us that following the Hiroshima blast, if the United States had given Japan a little more time — five days or a week — the country would have surrendered without the loss of life in Nagasaki.
History will furnish different answers to the morality of the action, but morality itself is clear: Killing of innocent people is a heinous moral usurpation, an evil unmitigated by politics, military strategy, or any application of “lesser of two evils” logic. In remembrance of the horrible day, Aug. 6, 1945, THE PLANET shares two of the best articles we came across on the anniversary of Hiroshima. Each address the moral imperative, but the first gets a bit more into the science of the process. The second labels the decision to use the nukes a “crime.”
The first is contributed by THE SOLIPCIST:
EINSTEIN’S DEATH EQUATION
By THE SOLIPCIST
Special to PLANET VALENTI Science
Albert Einstein once jokingly said “It is stupid to fear death. After ones death one has to fear no accidents nor pain.” He even denied surgery on his deathbed citing, “I will go elegantly. It’s time to go. I have done my bit. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially.”
Einstein at the blackboard.
That brilliant thinker, who did not fear even death, succumbed to fear, the fear of Herr Hitler being in the possession of an atomic bomb. When fear gets the best of you, even the greatest thinkers make mistakes. This is the story of one such calculative mistake that Einstein made out of fear. It made him write a letter to the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The letter would eventually result in The Manhattan Project and build the atomic bombs that would one day destroy the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. it would also change humanity’s perception of war forever.
The atomic bomb was ironically the world’s first ever visual demonstration of the peace loving scientist’s death equation, E = MC2 .
Everybody has heard of E = MC2 . Every has heard of Einstein. But what about the equation made it so special? Of course Einstein was the Rajinikant of the scientific community, and anything he said was (a) widely popular and (b) taken seriously by the scientific community. The equation was also popular because it literally meant energy and matter are one and the same, and one can be converted into the other.
At first it was just theory. Of course, at the time of the equation’s discovery, converting any amount of mass into its potential energy or condensing energy back into matter was a practical impossibility. Nevertheless, the practical implications were mind boggling. His equation meant that even a freckle of matter with the mass of an atom has super kilotons of energy stored in it.
After all the ‘C’ stands for the speed of light, which is a huge number in itself. At first, even Einstein dismissed the prospect of the possibility of conversion of mass into energy. After his work with the energy-mass equivalence, Einstein set to live in the suburbs of New Jersey to fulfil his life dream of pursuing his work in peace.
The war was looming, and while Einstein was preaching against war and working on his “Understanding of God’s ways” through science and mathematics, his German brothers were seriously using the laboratory to win the war using his own equation under Hitler’s rule. They were looking for real life examples of the energy-mass equivalence. This led to the answering of a question that has puzzled humanity for thousands of years: “How does the sun power itself for so many billion years without running out of fuel?”
The answer was in Einstein’s equation. Every second on the sun, trillions of hydrogen atoms bombard with each. The resulting loss of mass is converted into an equivalent energy, which is huge. This releases mass in the form of light and heat, which enables us to survive here back in earth. Rather than admiring the beauty of how the equations function in the sun that makes life thrive here, the German scientists were asking, “Could we simulate the sun’s wrath here on earth to kill thousands of people?”
It wasn’t as easy as it sounded. The sun has such energy and heat, the hydrogen atoms easily break each other. Back in stable earthly conditions, however, it would require much more than brute force to break an atom apart releasing energy. Enter the brilliant mind of Szilard. Szialrd suggested that if we make the then-discovered particle called a neutrino stick to an atom, it would unstabilize it and therefore break it releasing mass and energy into more neutrinos. This would eventually hit more atoms, breaking them and thereby causing a chain reaction.
At the same time, the Germans had taken the first step in discovering how a neutrino could be bombarded into an atom using uranium supplies. The process is called nuclear fission. Technicalities aside, the thought of the possibility of an atomic bomb scared the bejeezus out of Szilard. He ran into Einstein’s apartment, explained what was going on in Germany, and discussed the possibility of Hitler dropping an atomic bomb on New York City.
Einstein still wouldn’t budge into helping anyone build an atomic bomb, including the U.S. Szilard could have done it alone, but he wanted the famous voice of Einstein to convince the American govt to fund the project. Einstein eventually gave into fear of Nazis building an atomic bomb and wrote a letter along with Szilard warning the President Roosevelt of the possibilities.
Roosevelt was smart enough to know anything Einstein said had to be taken seriously and begun the Manhattan Project. Germany eventually couldn’t solve the technical problems with fission and gave up, rendering the project moot.
Meanwhile, the war with Japan was looming. The U.S. decided to use the bomb. It was a cruel act, even if it ended the war early, especially given it was dropped without warning. Szilard was seriously hurt by the news that the bomb was going to dropped without warning. He tried obtaining petitions from the scientific community to urge Roosevelt to warn the Japanese before dropping it, but ego was at stake. The bomb was dropped.
Einstein listened to the next morning news shattered in his chair: “90% of the buildings are in rubble and the death count is too massive to be listed.” His life’s most important work had been applied to kill hundreds of thousands of lives.
Einstein said before his death that “Writing the letter was the biggest blunder” he made in this entire life. He spent the last decade of his life trying to convince world leaders to stop building nuclear weapons. They ignored his entreaties.
Today China and India have tested nuclear weapons that can wipe out half of the North American continent. If Einstein’s words of peace had no impact on the society, I don’t think I can provide any moral that would be effective.
The story of the mistake was over. But the story of the equation was not. Unfortunately, Einstein did not live long enough to realise his death equation was also the equation of life. Mass could be converted into energy and was demonstrated cruelly at Hiroshima. But scientists would later discover that the reason Big Bang created so matter and eventually — because the huge amounts of pure energy released during the Big Bang condensed into the first matter, stars and then eventually into metals and life and everything we know in this universe. In a way, Einstein’s equation explains everything there is. Let’s embrace it rather than use it to end everything there ever is.
The U.S. must call for total and complete nuclear disarmament by all parties. We must lead the way by unilaterally rendering obsolete our nuclear arsenal. We must beat swords into ploughshares and take our chances.
—– oo —–
THE LETTER
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THE PLANET thanks THE SOLIPCIST and James Carroll for these articles. We invite your thoughts on the question: Were the bombing at Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?
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WANDERING HEEDLESSLY, THE ENOLA GAY DROPPED PALE PAIN OVER THE CITY’S SHADOW, AND IT SHALL LEAVE US NOT AGAIN. THEY ERRED, AND THERE WAS NO JOY IN THEIR ERROR — ONLY PAIN, INSULT, UNREST, AND TERROR. MAKE PEACE, NOT WAR.
“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”
LVOE TO ALL.
I share everyone’s sadness of Nancy’s passing. Condolences to her loved ones.
On another topic, I’m wondering why the radio silence on this news? Saw it on other sites, including the Gazette. Did I miss it here? I don’t think the BB published anything either. Seems strange that this story wasn’t front and center.
MCLA Welcomes Eberwein as New Dean of Graduate and Continuing Education
08/03/2012
WBRK had it on this morning.
Condolences to Nancy’s/”Molly”‘s family on their loss.
Remember what I wrote about you being spectacularly wrong?
Einstein was a little full of himself, as if he was science’s official spokesman. Japan was a rabid dog, and the only moral consideration it deserved was to be put down humanely. That the nation and even the royal family were allowed to continue was pure generosity on the part of the rest of the world.
Sorry about the passing of Molly. My thoughts are with her family. i agree with Dan about the bomb. The second bombing, nagasaki, cannot be defended. The war mongers like Ge. Curtis LeMay unfortunately prevailed and almost did in the Cold War when LeMay and the other lunatics in the SAC were advocating to eisenhower a first strike all out nuke attack on the “red menace.”
Soryy to read about the passing of Molly, Fond memories of her, sincere sympathies and prayer to her family and friends.
It’s so easy to take a hardened stance on the use of atomic weaponry today, without having to look at the decision Truman made through the lens of the time. I recently saw an excellent documentary on PBS about the battle for Okinawa and its aftermath, including the dropping of the bombs. 38,000 Americans were wounded, 12,000 killed. Nearly 200,000 Japanese soldiers and civilians died. That was one battle for a small island. The estimates of expected casualties for invading the home islands was enormous. The Japanese had 13 divisions entrenched in the southern-most island, awaiting an invasion force.
You say the answer was to have the Japanese witness a test bombing. I think it’s highly doubtful they would have agreed to do so, and even if they had, they would have stretched it out to aid in the development of their own heavy water experiments. The testimony of a Japanese scientist who worked on their own atomic weapons program indicates they may have been ready to test their own bomb before the end of 1945. At the time, Truman’s intelligence arms were telling him that the Japanese were very close to having their own bomb.
You also say the Japanese were not given a long enough window to surrender after Hiroshima. I disagree. Fact – after the Hiroshima bombing, the hard-line military leaders were continuing to press for a continuance of the war – and they, inaccurately, thought the US had only one bomb. We had told them we had more – they didn’t believe us (again, this was in the documentary). Another fact – after the emperor agreed to the surrender, he was nearly overthrown by a military coup that had reached the courtyard of his residence before being stopped.
The devastation that the bombs left is undeniable. But in comparison it’s no worse than the horrific loss of life on Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Okinawa, the Phillipines, Pearl Harbor and many other places in the Pacific war.
Truman had to decide between an invasion that would have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and perhaps millions of Japanese, or the use of two very powerful weapons that could end the war right then and there. I think he made the right choice. So do a lot of soldiers from the European theater who were waiting for orders to head to the Pacific – my father was one of them.
BULL
Okinawa wasn’t a small island. It is the largest of the Okinawa-Ryuku Island chain. The Battle of Okinawa last 82 days owing to the nature of island warfare, far different from fighting on contiguous land. Your casualty figures are also off: 12,150 GIs were killed and about 95,000 Japanese soldiers. No one will know what Japan would have done if the U.S. had given them a demonstration of the bomb before dropping one or giving them more time after the Hiroshima blast. The hard-liners in the military were losing sway, since it was evident to all that the war was lost. They were in a suicidal mode. Following Hiroshima, even a couple more days could have resulted in a peaceful surrender. At least we should have tried that. We will not attempt to equate, somehow, the horrific loss of life in the theaters of war you mention with the loss of life at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Perhaps the point is this: once war begins, no choice is the right choice. There are only decisions to be made from among a variety of evils. The persistent problem with war is that we do it to ourselves, alone among all species.
My casualty figures are not wrong. As I said, there were 12,000 Americans killed, which you agree with, and 200,000 Japanese soldiers AND civilians killed. That’s based on statistics showing 95,000 Japanese soldiers killed and anywhere between 42,000 and 150,000 civilians killed. Those numbers can be found on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Accurate civilian figures are hard to come by, but even if you split the difference between the estimates, you would get nearly 200,000 Japanese killed in total.
My point is Okinawa is not as large as the mainland, and was not as well supplied or manned as the mainland would have been. They would have fought to the last, as they did on Okinawa, and they would have demanded the same of their civilian population.The casualty figures for an invasion of the home islands would have been likely in the hundreds of thousands for American losses. And frankly, if you’re the president of the United States, that is what you have to consider when you’re at war. Japanese losses would have been staggering. A little known fact – if you think Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrong, declassified documents show that Marshall presented an invasion plan to Truman calling for the use of ‘tactical atomic bombs’ to be used on the beaches of Japan for the allied landings. Just imagine how horrible both the initial blasts would have been, not to mention the radiation poisoning our own men would have suffered after hitting the beaches.
We’d all love to live in a world filled with no war, Dan, but it was the Japanese who started the war, and it was a brutal conflict that needed to end. I think Truman made the decision based on what he knew at the time, and he didn’t have the luxury of hindsight, as we do.
And as I said about the ‘demonstration,’ I just can’t picture the Japanese sending envoys to a remote island to watch America drop a test bomb. It wouldn’t have happened. It was not their way (at the time).
Actually, the island chain was better manned and more ably supplied than the homeland. The Japanese didn’t have the population to man the entire peninsula. Moreover, their war machine had been greatly decimate by that late stage of the war. They were sending in one-way suicide flights, and they could not manufacture adequate fighter planes. WIthout air capability, the mainland would have been nearly helpless. Yes, the militarists and fanatics, who wanted hari-kari for an entire nation, would have argued for continuing on. The emperor, his cabinet, and most of the military didn’t want it. That is, for example, why the coup you mentioned failed. The fanatics couldn’t even take over its own government, where it had all sorts of tactical and surprise advantages.
Bull,
There is no legitimate challenge to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those two cities represented major industrial sites fueling the Japanese war effort, and we needed to knock them out.
We brought the Japanese military to it’s knees; we anticipated surrender numerous times only to find they were just digging in further; and our concluding act was tactical and measured in comparison to the alternatives.
And surrender to the Japanese – or a stalemate for that matter – was not an option.
Bull, thank you for your articulate and reasonable statement.
It was my understanding that in fact it was the Japanese gov’t that didn’t notify their own people of the bomb. It was horrible and aside from winning the war it was a statement to the rest of the world for sure.
I also want to express my deep sympathy to Molly’s family and friends upon her passing. I didn’t always agree with her, but I respected the fact that she made arguments that she defended in a solid manner at all times and could engage in respectful debate and discussion without rancor.
Would like to express my heartfelt condolence to Ms. Nancy and Family,anyone who blogged in here I’m sure was interested at what she wrote, she was a talented and interesting person to read. Godspeed Molly.
One good thing that came out of that terrible December night in 2011 was my friendship with Nancy. We have been cyber buddies since she was one of the people who suggested the February Event for Pittsfield to show their support for my step son Peter Moore. We have emailed back and forth multiple times daily on a variety of topics. I came to think of her as a close friend. In her last email she told me that the news was not good. I told her that if there was an Olympic Medal for fighting cancer she surely would win the Gold. Even then she wasn’t planning on giving up! She had wanted one last summer and one last day to spend on her boat reading and perhaps drinking a glass of wine. She spent some of her precious energy getting the boat ready yet never got that ride.
This past week when I didn’t hear from here after a few days I feared the worst. My heart goes out to her family. I shall miss her terribly after knowing her such a short time. I can only imagine how big a hole there will be in your hearts. She worried about Max and Molly. I hope you can find somebody who will give them a good home. Perhaps somebody on the Planet has a soft spot for 2 old cats whose names were used for some of the most vibrant and passionate posts we had the privilege of reading and responding to! Not just the ones regarding the Moore-Nilan case which I was most interested in, but I read her posts on the school board and other well researched posts as well. There may be one less person on the Planet but there is one more Star in the Heavens.
SUSAN
A beautiful tribute to a special person. Thank you for this. THE PLANET asks if anyone out there can adopt Molly’s two cats. Let us know.
Again, thank you so much to all of you. My sister left the same impression with everyone that she met. There is some good news: Molly and Max have found a wonderful home with an older couple who were looking to adopt a rescue cat from a shelter. Ironically and Providentially, this wonderful couple are extended family members who had actually met Nancy and knew of her illness. They saw the cats’ pics on Facebook, (they are both beautiful!) and since they were in the market for one cat anyway and are able to meet the challenges down the road of 2 hiv+ cats, figured it would be a terrible shame if they were separated and wanted them both! So M&M are in their new home and will hopefully soon recover from the trauma of losing their beloved caretaker. In fact, Molly settled in a lot more easily than Max, who’s still adapting to his new environs but when he’s through mourning, he’ll appreciate their new home and that they’ve been saved again. Our family is so grateful and relieved at how this worked out and Nancy would be so pleased. It weighed very heavily on her mind, knowing how difficult it is to place cats with HIV so this will help her rest a little more easily, I’m sure. And it gives her family a reason to smile a little during this terrible, awful time.
Dan, that was so thoughtful of you to want to help find them homes and it was a beautiful piece that you wrote. Susan, your post was truly lovely too. I’m so touched by the outpouring of sympathy from so many posters on this site, all I can say is a very heartfelt THANK YOU. It is very much appreciated.
RIP Molly
Best to Molly’s family.
I never meet Nancy,but got to know her through her writing.She was very passionate about what she believed in.I loved that about her.She will be truely missed.Thought that it was cute that she used her cats name Molly as her moniker.God bless you and your family,may you be at peace.
Wow, I did not know all this about Molly. Very Sad.
My first post on here was just about a month ago and I hesitated at doing it but felt compelled because of Dan’s first Amendment rights being trampled on.
It was Molly who welcomed me here with open arms.
She said she hoped I would return with more comments and I did.
Very sad. I can’t say I knew her at all but now I feel she reached out and touched me in her final hours. I feel honored for that.
My deepest condolence to Nancy’s family. May she rest in eternal peace.
Molly, thank you. To Molly’s family, please carry on with her enthusiasm and effort to bring truth to the community. God bless.
To quote Bob Hope, “thanks for the memories”.
I
I do not believe that President Harry Truman should have used civilian areas to drop the 2 atomic bombs on Japan. If I were in Truman’s shoes, I would have not used nuclear weapons to end World War 2. The theory I have come to understand is that America wanted to defeat Japan before the Soviet Union forces entered the war. We did not want Joseph Stalin and his regime in Japan to spread Communism. If America used conventional instead of nuclear weapons, the Russians troops would have entered the war in Japan. If I was President Truman, I would have risked Russia in Japan rather than use nuclear weapons to keep the Soviets out.
That’s what bugs me about all the “conspiracy theories” if there are powers in gov’t driving for a communist police state why have we gone to such lengths throughout history to promote democracy and wage war on communist countries???
JM is nothing more than a site pest from 2 states away. The only thing to do about him is to ignore him.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were targeted as they were the industrial suppliers for the Japanese war machine. We had no option but to destroy their capacity to arm themselves and fight.
Get over it, Jon, if you embed military activity in civilian zones, go on to commit mass war crimes, don’t feed to much sympathy when we take them down.
typo: “don’t feed to much sympathy when we take them down.”
“they should not expect much sympathy when we take them down.”
I want to join everyone else in offering condolences to Nancy/Molly and her family. I thank especially her sister, Diogenes, Susan Moore, and Dan Valenti. Molly was much beloved on this site and i’m sure that’s only a small taste of how much her family and others loved her in person. Thanks everyone who took the time to send in a few good words. May she rest in peace, Amen.
Molly you are already missed ! We know you will be looking down on us holding one of the brightest lights in the sky. My condolences to Nancy’s family and friends.
The Pittsfield Babe Ruth 15-year old All-Stars won are New England champions. Congratulations to manager Bob Shade and his remarkable young ballplayers. It wasn’t easy getting there. They had to win a doubleheader on the final day or their season was over. They did it and the players now look forward to a trip of a lifetime representing Pittsfield at the Babe Ruth World Series in Arkansas.
These are our kids who will be representing our community in Arkansas. Pittsfield is the birthplace of baseball. Does anyone remember 1791? The point being great baseball is part of Pittsfield’s DNA and this group of 15-year old champions is carrying on our legacy.
Arkansas is a considerable distance from Pittsfield. Money is a necessity. It would be nice if all the players, substitutes included, made the trip.
Pittsfield manages to find money for any number of good, bad, ridiculous, questionable, stupid reasons when it wants to. Well, this is a good reason. It’s for a group of kids who win or lose have made us proud and we wish them the best as they play against the nations best.
Isn’t there some way a miniuscule piece of our $120 million dollar budget can be used to send Pittsfield youngsters to represent Pittsfiled, Mass. at a once in a lifetime trip to play in a Babe Ruth World Series?
You mean free cash?
Tito,
Yes, free cash is one way. Another is cash from account(s) that are not being fully utilized.This happens all the time. I’m hoping someone in city hall takes a leadership role and shows us the way.
I don’t think the majority of taxpayers would want to fund a Babe Ruth Tournament to be truthful, not that I’m against it.