In his annual message for peace, Benedict worried about "the race for energy sources" and well as a "fear of a possible atomic catastrophe".
"The world's worst atomic catastrophe is very far from over".
But what we now know all too well at Fukushima is that the world's worst atomic catastrophe is very far from over.
Within days, Japan had surrendered, and the U.S. readied plans for occupying the defeated country -- and documenting the first atomic catastrophe.
"Jericho" 's title sequence emerges from a black-and-white TV screen fuzzed with static, a trope that calls to mind the era when "Twilight Zone" episodes often featured characters isolated by atomic catastrophes.
Mr. Paglen's photographs included a taste of art (Paul Klee, Ai Weiwei) and extensive documentary evidence of the human race's murderous and suicidal tendencies, with pictures of atomic catastrophes, melted glaciers and predator drones.
When we began organizing this symposium more than one year ago and settled on the title, "The Atomic Age from Hiroshima to the Present," we had no expectation, indeed, no wish, that "the present" would include an actual nuclear catastrophe.
They concern teenagers, rock 'n' roll, juvenile delinquents, monsters, aliens, killers, spies, detectives, bikers, communists, drugs, natural catastrophes, atomic bombs, the prehistoric past, and the projected future.
Eisenhower argued that the nation needed a road system that could "meet the demands of catastrophe or defense, should an atomic war come". The atomic war never came, but the interstates -- officially known today as "The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways" -- have proved their value in catastrophic times.
Not surprisingly, a week into the new administration, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock half a minute closer toward catastrophe – the closest the clock has been to "midnight" since 1953.
And in the last two months, the Egyptian revolution and the Japanese catastrophe – I mean, obviously, not just the earthquake but the atomic menace – shows that we cannot think in the old ways.
