The News From Fukushima Darkens - No End in Sight

Fukushima - One Step Forward and Four Steps Back as Each Unit Challenged by New Problems from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

Wasilla HS Principal Dwight Probasco & Elton John - Separated at Birth?

Probably not. They just look more alike than Dwight might feel comfortable about. After all, if Elton is gay, Dwight wouldn't let him be played at Wasilla High School:

When members of Wasilla High School’s symphonic jazz choir heard Friday it wouldn’t be singing the popular Queen hit “Bohemian Rhapsody” at this year’s graduation ceremony after working on it all year, the students couldn’t get their heads around it.

WHS Principal Dwight Probasco reportedly had received complaints from at least one parent that the 1975 hit written by Freddie Mercury wasn’t appropriate for the ceremony simply because Mercury was gay.

“The whole thing was just ridiculous,” senior Rachel Clark said Monday. “They’d played the song on the school intercom and we played it at prom. It’s a great song and the choir was really excited to be singing it. And the senior class felt like it defined them.”

Probasco - who is a long-time friend of mine - is backtracking away from this as being about Freddie Mercury's sexual orientation:

Choir member Casey Hight, a junior, was angry enough to contact a gay and lesbian support organization in Anchorage for help. They told her to contact an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union.

“I felt like the school was discriminating for sexual orientation and I felt it was wrong,” Hight said Monday. “It’s so stupid because there’s nothing sexual in the song. There aren’t even any cuss words.”

Although Probasco wouldn’t comment on the issue Monday, Senior Class Advisor Deb Haynes said Probasco has now agreed to allow the choir to sing an edited version of Bohemian Rhapsody that doesn’t include lyrics in one section about killing a man.

“The kids had put a lot of time into the song, but at graduation we really try to accommodate anything that might be a sensitive issue for anybody,” Haynes said, adding she didn’t understand why the song would have been a problem in the first place. “I’ve heard it a hundred times and it’s never bothered me.”

Hight said she believes Probasco decided to put the song back on the graduation program because he didn’t want any problems with the ACLU.

Clark said it didn’t make sense for the school district to tout tolerance for all and then turn around and allow homophobia to dictate something such as graduation music.

“We were joking about singing Elton John’s ‘Candle in the Wind,’ instead,” Clark said. “I guess no matter what you do, someone’s feathers are going to get ruffled.”

My feathers are ruffled. If Wasillians are going to be consistent, they'll need to ban the following composers and their work:

Samuel Barber - No more Adagio for Strings, Dwight
Leonard Bernstein - Don't you dare play anything from West Side Story, my friend
Aaron Copland - Watch out for those hidden messages in Fanfare for the Common Man
Noël Coward - no more Mad Dogs & Englishmen
Charles Tomlinson Griffes - careful, Dwight, a piece for flute or piano might sneak into a solo and ensemble contest
Elton John - empty the sky, Dwight. Right now!
Dave Koz - he was a hit in Anchorage, but don't play his version of White Christmas at WHS
k.d. lang - put her in Shadowland forever, Dwight
Gian Carlo Menotti - those little operas have been done at thousands of high schools, but keep away from Dwight
Cole Porter - there go about 500 really good songs, Dwight
Stephen Sondheim - Gypsy, West Side Story, A Little Night Music or Company. Oh - wait! West Side Story's already banned because of Lenny
Billy Strayhorn - Can't Take the A Train if you're a WHS Warrior
Peter Tchaikovsky - What was the secret message in The Nutcracker, Dwight?

Joking aside, one might hope that on the eve of his retirement, Dwight Probasco would have shown a bit more resistance to this kind of pressure. And - once again - the crazies and their pull ghelp my hometown make the national news.

image - my friend Dwight Probasco with his long-lost twin, Elton John
hat tip - Joe McGinniss

If You're in Unalaska on Friday the 13th - Come Hear My Music

Tomorrow, the Chugach Brass, with pianist Dean Epperson, will perform in Unalaska. They are the guests of the school district there, hopefully inspiring young people there and in Dutch Harbor, to perform or enjoy music themselves.

Among other works, they will give the premiere of my new work, Aleutian Sketches, commissioned by the chamber group for this concert. The regular members of the group are Linn Weeda, trumpet; Cheryl Pierce, French horn; and Christopher Sweeney, trombone. The Chugach Brass is the resident brass group at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where the players teach.

Here is the music of Aleutian Sketches, as rendered by my computer's sampled sounds:

Aleutian Sketches
for
Trumpet, French Horn, Trombone
&
Piano

Op. 91 (2010-2011)
for Linn Weeda

Philip Munger

Program Notes

Aleutian Sketches was commissioned by the Chugach Brass, resident brass trio at the University of Alaska Anchorage. It is my second work for them, the first being Westchester Suite (for brass and organ), Op. 82, from 2006.

This work is dedicated to Linn Weeda, in recognition of the 26 years over which we have created and shared music together.

I. A Yankee Whaler Enters Iliuliuk Bay: I imagine a 19th century whaling vessel, coming into the small bay near Unalaska, seeking shelter to make repairs before it exits the Bering Sea after a successful voyage. It opens and closes with a theme meant to convey a wooden ship under sail. The center section features two iterations of the sea chantey, Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her.

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II. A Deadly Catch is a series of tricky rounds.

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III. Blessing the Fleets is a chorale paraphrase based upon the early 20th century composer Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov’s setting of Psalm 120, Blagoslovi, dushe moya, Ghospoda, in his Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. A short interlude pines at fragments from two Russian sea chanties, As We Lay on an Afternoon and Let Us Pull Away Together, Boys.

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IV. Volcano Woman II: This is my second setting of this Aleut creation myth. The first was in my 1992-93 work, Robot Gagaku, Op. 28. This second version is directly inspired by Alaska Native artist John Hoover’s monumental sculpture, Volcano Woman. The rondo form of this movement depicts the circular structure of the sculpture, with peopled island figures at the outside, the cormorants in the middle and the Volcano Woman herself at the center, dispensing both her power and fertility.



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Volcano Woman - by John Hoover

Japan Nuclear Watch, May 12: TEPCO Finds Hole, Leak in Unit 1 Reactor Vessel

--- by Scarecrow

Ever since the Japan earthquake and tsunami disabled the cooling systems at Units 1-4 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant, each of those units has been suffering significant leaks of radioactive water through various but mostly unconfirmed sources. Those leaks could be in the cooling system pipes, damaged valves and pumps, or even related condenser equipment in adjacent turbine buildings.

More ominous would be leaks from the containment structure or pressure suppression pool, and worst of all would be leaks directly from the reactor vessel that holds the damaged, partially melted fuel core.

News reports this morning are now confirming there is a major leak from a hole, likely “several centimeters” in diameter, in the reactor vessel at Unit 1. The utility, TEPCO, discovered the leak/hole in the reactor vessel after making repairs on a related gauge. From Reuters:

Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have been pumping water into four of the six reactors on the site to bring their nuclear fuel rods to a “cold shutdown” state by January.

But after repairing a gauge in the No. 1 reactor earlier this week, Tokyo Electric Power Co discovered that the water level in the pressure vessel that contains its uranium fuel rods had dropped about 5 meters (16 ft) below the targeted level to cover the fuel under normal operating conditions.

“There must be a large leak,” Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at the utility also known as TEPCO, told a news conference.

The Reuters article is not clear about the location of this hole, and authorities may not know. We have reported previously that one theory about the continuing leaks from the Unit 1-3 reactors noted leaks could arise from damage to the seals for one or more of the water injection or steam withdrawal pipes connected directly to the reactor vessel. These occur at various levels on the vessel, relative to the height of the fuel rods. One set, for example, would be about half way down the level of fuel rods, and if a leak at that point were large, it would effectively preclude the operators from maintaining water above that level, leaving the fuel rods partially exposed. In theory, they might be able to inject water faster than it leaked out, but at the time, their makeshift pumping equipment did not have that capacity.

A worse scenario would be that the “hole” was created by melting fuel either damaging the vessel as it fell to the bottom, or worse, burning through the bottom of the pressure vessel. That could mean that both contaminated water and melted fuel could fall through onto the containment structure floor. What Reuters reports, in quoting local officials, doesn’t tell us the answer:

“The fuel pellets likely melted and fell, and in the process may have damaged … the pressure vessel itself and created a hole,” he added.

Since the surface temperature of the pressure vessel has been holding steady between 100 and 120 degrees Celsius, Matsumoto said the effort to cool the melted uranium fuel by pumping in water was working and would continue.

Based on the amount of water that is remaining around the partially melted and collapsed fuel, Matsumoto estimated that the pressure vessel had developed a hole of several centimeters in diameter.

However, this report from NHK World suggest the “hole” is below the bottom of the fuel rods, even though TEPCO doesn’t believe the fuel has melted through the reactor vessel:

The utility had suspected the gauge wasn’t working properly because the water level hasn’t been rising despite pumping in 150 tons of water daily to cool the reactor.

On Thursday morning, it was found that the water level was more than one meter below the bottom of the fuel rods, suggesting a large volume of water is leaking into the containment vessel.

The utility company also believes that the water is leaking from the containment vessel into the reactor building. This is because the estimated volume of water inside the containment vessel appears to be less than what leaked into it from the reactor.

And there’s this from Japan Times:

According to Tepco, the water-level indicators of the pressure vessel had indicated the water surface was about 1.65 meters below the top of the fuel rods. But as of Thursday morning the reading was more than 5 meters below the top. The fuel rods, if undamaged, are only 4.5 meters in height.

[Note: When Japan sources refer to the "contaiment vessel," they mean what I've been calling the "containment structure" that encloses the reactor vessel. See diagram above. The don't mean the reactor vessel that holds the core.]

Since no one can get inside the containment structure or close to the vessel to inspect it, they can only infer how large the hole is based on water injection and leakage rates and temperatures. At this point, it’s not clear whether they’ve just discovered a condition that has been there since the first days, when the core was uncovered and the melting occurred, or whether this is a later hole that is being steadily enlarged by the melted fuel. Either way, it means that keeping the remaining fuel covered is a serious challenge.

Sources:

NHK World
Kyodo News
Hi-res photos
IAEA Updates
Union of Concerned Scientists

The NORSK Institute Zardoz Cache

Action: Chickaloon - Testimony Deadline Today

Alaska Mental Health Trust is planning on leasing 11,000 acres (over 18 square miles) of subsurface coal leases in Chickaloon (see Map).

Click on the Arrow to go to Take Action.

This is an URGENT call to action.

Submit your personal Comments to the Board of Trustees with the online Form

The Alaska Mental Health Land Trust is once again planning to lease lands in and around Chickaloon for coal development. According to the Trust Land Office, they have received unsolicited inquiries from multiple mining companies about the lands in Chickaloon. They are considering conducting a competitive lease offering for these lands.

At a two day Board of Trustees meeting May 10-11 in Anchorage, they may decide to lease Chickaloon coal again!

Things to comment on:

If one coal mine in our valley is permitted, there will be a domino effect with coal mines proposed at Wishbone Hill, Jonesville, and again at Chickaloon. Be sure to take action asking that the Wishbone Hill Air Permit is denied.

Property values near the proposed Wishbone Hill coal mine are already impacted by banks refusing to loan in the area.

Our property values must be protected.

The 18 square miles of proposed coal leases are next to private property with no setback!

No one wants to live next to industrial extraction activities like coal mining.

Blasting will rock the very foundations of our homes.

The groundwater we rely on for our wells will be contaminated.

Coal dust is bad for your health, especially if you have asthma.

Coal mining creates ozone which is bad for your heart & lungs.

The railroad right of way is still held by the ALaska Railroad all the way up to Chickaloon!

Do you want coal trains, or coal trucks in your neighborhood?

There is very little financial benefit to the Alaska Mental Health Trust.

Competitive bids will start at $5 per acre X 11,486.68 acres = $57,433.40 per year.

Common sense compels us to ask: Why are they willing to sacrifice our property values, and health for such a tiny benefit to Alaskans?

The Board meeting is two days, May 10-11. The Chickaloon leases may be voted on either day.

To teleconference on May 11, call 1 866-469-3239, enter the Session Number: 801 652 189 #
or go online to: http://amhta.webex.com

The Board meeting is two days. They may vote on the Chickaloon leases on Tuesday or Wed. May 11th.

This Saturday's Anchorage Civic Orchestra Russian Pops Concert Looking Great!

Tuesday evening was our last regular rehearsal of the Anchorage Civic Orchestra's Spring Concert - Russian Pops. Some of the pieces are already sounding remarkable, and everything else is shaping up. Friday is dress rehearsal, Saturday - show time.

Shannyn Moore's narration of Peter and the Wolf, and the wonderful performance of it by the ensemble, is worth the ticket price on its own. But there's much more. Here are the program notes I've written:

Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov:
Dance of the Tumblers from the Opera, The Snow Maiden (1880-81)

The Snow Maiden, the fourth of Rimsky Korsakov’s 16 operas, remained his favorite. The opera pits the eternal forces of nature against humans, mythological creatures and hybrid spirits somewhere between the two realms. The scene in which the dance appears in the opera is a fest for the Tsar. A band of smorokhi, or buffoon-like acrobats, entertain the Tsar and his party. The dance is a little sonatina movement, with first and second themes, a development section and recapitulation.

Alexander Borodin:
Notturno from String Quartet No. 2 (1881)

Borodin’s String Quartet No. 2 is his most popular chamber work. Rich with melodic content, its themes have been adapted to the stage and film. The main theme from this Notturno became And This My Beloved in Kismet, which became a radio hit in the USA in 1956, when sung by Mario Lanza. The song has been recorded by a plethora of male singers over the years, ranging from Jim Nabors to Sun Ra.

Sergei Prokofiev:
Peter and the Wolf (1936)

Sandwiched between two major masterpieces, the ballet Romeo and Juliet and the oratorio-film score Alexander Nevsky, the chamber work Peter and the Wolf is far more popular than the titans which flank it. Even though the story of the little Peter’s victory over the big, bad wolf was unsuccessful upon its first public performances in the USSR, it became one of the 20th century’s most popular children’s compositions.

The work and its narration have been highly modified in many productions – for radio, film, television, the stage and concert hall. We have chosen to perform it with the original narration, but with a larger orchestra than is often used, mostly so the members of the Anchorage Civic Orchestra can have as much fun a the kids in the audience.

Dmitri Shostakovich:
Waltz from the film The First Echelon (1955) – arranged by Philip Munger

Shostakovich wasn’t just the most popular symphonist of the mid-20th century, he was the USSR’s John Williams. His 36 film scores, written between 1929 and 1970 might not compare with John Williams’ 99 film scores, but Shostakovich’s film music probably saved his life.

During the consolidation of Josef Stalin’s power in the mid-1930s, many of Shostakovich’s friends and collaborators were shot or simply disappeared into the Gulag Archipelago. Shostakovich came close to being rounded up, but was probably saved by the fact that he had become Stalin’s favorite film composer.

The First Echelon was Mikhail Kalatozov’s last film before a series of masterpieces, beginning with The Cranes are Flying. Shostakovich’s waltz from the film became far more popular than the movie itself, and was adapted by the composer into several arrangements in the late 1950s.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky:
The Year 1812, Festival Overture in E-flat (1880)

From the opening bars’ initially quiet rendition of the moving Slavic Orthodox Troparion of the Holy Cross, to the concluding blasts of God Save the Tsar! Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture is certainly his most popular composition. Although he did not like the idea behind the piece or its music, its existence and frequent performances helped make him and his estate very wealthy.

The overture, about the epic 1812 invasion of Russia by Napoleon and his armies, and their eventual defeat by the Russian forces, borrows the above themes, the Russian folk song-dance, At the Gate, At My Gate, and Le Marseillaise, in a free form structure that gathers momentum throughout. The peace of Russia, exemplified by the Slavic Orthodox hymn, is broken by the invasion. Increasing distress doesn’t climax with the Battle of Borodino, but afterward, as the weight of Russia itself crushes the French, and the overture concludes with their demise.

Tchaikovsky never heard the overture done with the live cannon and fireworks, which frequently accompany outdoor performances around the world now. We perform it as closely resembling Tchaikovsky’s own rendition of it in 1891 in New York City, at the inaugural concert of the brand new Carnegie Hall as we can.

Jetman Over Grand Canyon Yesterday

Palmer Coal Awareness Meeting Shows Growing Concern

Monday's public meeting in Palmer, hosted by the Mat Valley Coalition and Alaska Community Action on Toxics was mostly about health issues, which are scary enough to me. There were a lot of young couples there with their very young kids scampering around the Palmer train depot, where about 85 people listened to or participated in the events and presentations.

The centerpiece of the informational offerings was Dr. Michelle Prevost's new powerpoint lecture on coal and public health. It was the first time she has given this lecture. It should be the first of many.

She used a lot of statistics provided by Physicians for Social Responsibility. They are solid. After the event, I asked Dr. Prevost if there are local or Anchorage chapters of the organization. She doesn't think there are. I suggested she develop her powerful talk for many meetings around Palmer, Sutton and Wasilla. She might do that.

One of the problems with raising public awareness on health issues of coal development at the edge of the Mat-Su core is that our political infrastructure, with a few exceptions, has been taken over by the Teabaggers so well represented by pols like Wes Keller, Carl Gatto and Charlie Huggins. None of them could give a shit about public health. But people here do care about that. The pro-development side not only has ideological support from dimwits like Wes, Carl and Charlie, they're getting a lot of bucks from Usabelli, the mining company hoping to cripple our kids, grandkids, air, water and soil.

Big bucks.

Bucks talk. They not only talk to politicians only a resignation, election or indictment beyond Vic Kohring, Bev Masek and Scott Ogan, they talk to you and me; they talk to everyone here who owns property. And people here do care about how much their property is worth, even if they could give a flying fuck about why their next door neighbor's teenager has athsma, or the kid down the street is allergic to just about anything.

This from KTUU TV:

PALMER, Alaska— When it comes to buying or building a home, location is one of the major deciding factors. For the James family, they finally found the perfect location for their new home several miles north of Palmer on Buffalo Mine Road.

"We like it up here, it's remote enough but close enough to the cities where we can get to things," said Pamela James.

But the location of their new home has made it a little more difficult for them to borrow money to help pay for it. The Jameses were denied a construction loan, and they were told it was because their property is in close proximity to the proposed Wishbone Hill Coal Mine.

They are not the only ones to be denied. One of their neighbors was denied by Wells Fargo. In an email dated Feb. 24, the Home Mortgage Consultant stated "I was able to confirm that the property will not be eligible for financing with Wells Fargo due to the coal mine and it's proximity."

Another potential property owner was denied a loan through Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union because the cabin they were interested in was considered too close to the potential development.

"I understand the emotions on all sides of this thing," said Al Strawn the CEO of Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union. Strawn said that loan managers initially pinpointed the coal mine site, drew a one-mile radius and decided to not grant loans for properties within that area. Strawn said they have since changed their policy.

"This has been an evolving policy but today we are open for business to anybody that lives up in that area, for any of the properties, we are going to look at each of them on a case by case basis," Strawn said. "If it's very very close to the proposed development then we may have to discount the collateral value somewhat, but we're not going to just have a 'no loan' area," he added.

Trust me, once the mining operation gets going, those properties are going to decline in value very, very fast. And if you take Strawn at his word, I have a bridge to nowhere I think you might want to buy. It leads from Soapstone Road to central West Virginia, with no intervening stops.

Dr. Prevost:

Don't Forget - Breathe Free Today @ 6:00 - Palmer Depot

Breathe Free:

Protecting Our Community From Toxic Coal Dust

Bring a friend to this free community health event!

Monday, May 9th, 6pm – 8pm, (free Mercury hair testing begins at 5pm)
Palmer Depot

Pollution from the proposed Wishbone Hill coal strip mine will be harmful to public health in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. Come to this public forum to learn about the true costs of this coal mine and the impacts it could have on our health. Local doctors, public health professionals and business owners will share their knowledge and experience dealing with the impacts of coal mining.

Come by the Palmer Depot at 5:00pm to get your hair tested for mercury.
Snacks and coffee will be provided.

610 South Valley Way, Palmer, AK 99645

Sponsored by: Mat Valley Coalition and Alaska Community Action on Toxics