in one vast inexcusable snap, the world was made new.  they called it Castle Bravo.

    Castle Bravo was a 15 megaton explosion over the Marshall Islands on March 1, 1954.  the energy released was over 1000 times the energy released at either of the weapons deployed against Japan at the end of the war.  it was also the worst radiological disaster in the United States.  

    the image above has become more than symbol.  it is a visual shorthand for the global maturity imposed by cold war politics.  it is a dear john letter sent from one species to an entire world.  it is an excuse for any paranoia.  it is the reason we have interstate highways and the reason we have to decom ICBM silos in Nebraska.  

    think of what we wouldn’t have save for this image and others like it.  think of all that fear, wasted without the grim specter of a sunrise from a thousand miles distant, the kind of sunrise that makes the sun appear a shadow of itself and which makes diplomacy obsolete.  makes insignia just some worthless costume jewelry.  a fascinating picture.  this must have been taken from dozens of miles distant.  it is the end that we all picture.