IATA REGULATIONS

[CHEME1234@aol.com]

I am some what reluctanjt to write this when I am still angry, but it could
take quite a while to come down sohere goes. 

I read the IATA message. My first reaction was why do we need a ScD to do
what  atechnican should be able to do. Then I realized why: think about
holoding 6 Federal Registers open at the same time , reading them , digesting
them, reconciling all the inconsistencies, and making a decison as to
packaging mode. Hell, he deserves two more PhDs for all that. 

I better give you some background. I am 48, a recently disabled chemical
engineer who has 25 years experience. I am maanic-depressive which means I
get livid about things that displease me. It is 5am in a small Iowa town.Im
at Hardees. Just stewing. Almost livid. But not waving my arms or muttering
to myself(yet).

I have been poking around AOL for maybe 6 months. Mostly for e[=mail and
mostly talkin gto other manic=depressives(MD). Ive tried to incite the folks
on the MD folder of the NAMI baord to riot and worry about something other
than pills. I tired of dealing with the MDs except for a select few. I
subscribed to radsafe because I was trying to determine the toxicoloogy of
low level ionizing radiatio. I have always been intrested in this because it
is key to all nuc arguments. Ive never worked with radiation, except
instruments. But I ahve worked with about every noxious corrosive,
carcinogenic chemical in commerce abd then some. Which is why I think I feel
so comfortable on this board. You have helped me with irrelevent ( to
radiation safety) issues regarding my daughters career. Intelligent answers
even when I didnt like them. So if you ban me aftr this little diatribe at
least I told you so. I couldnt find a alt.rubber-padded-roon news group or Id
just blow off steam there.

When i was in the process of getting disabled, they didnt say youve got a
medical problem, youre disabled. They said : "Youve got a performance problem
and if it isnt medical well fire your ass a fter 20 years of high performance"
 So, I said this is bullshit. I had decide that I would kill myself if I ever
went on dole. So in the intrest of suicide prevention I decide to start
recareering. They only place I was going to work was free lance. Poor job
performance, mental illness. Decided to become environmental journalist as
was intrest in environment 25 years ogo. Not active since but pay Nature
Conservancy and Wilderness society dues religiously. Is this going somewhere?
Read on.

I went ot SEJ(Society for Environemntal Journalists) convention in salt Lake
City. By coincidence, they had tour of Army nerve gas facility in Toelle.
Neat, I worked in a pesticide plant that had similairly deadly shit. Right up
my alley. To make a long story short, there were at least 2 or three really
neat storie ther. They had slide show for journalists. I needed a
smoke.Talked to bus driver trained in chemical warfare. You can t get the gas
mask on fast enoughif youre in cloud of "gas" If guy next to you goes down
you might get warning and have a chance. Encouraging Gas isnt really gas. It
is liquid it is not stored under pressure. the thing I worried about was how
would you work on cylinders if they were under pressure. Not a problem, felt
better. And on and on, los of neat little stories. There was a articel in
Science News about some labor issues the Army basically fed them. I felt
sorry for the Army after it was all over. They were told to get the plant
startted by a certain date and they did it and everybody waas picking over
them. I could go on. There is about 5billlion could be saved depending upon
where they incinerate gas. At 6 sites or 1 , but some people dont want too
move gas. Does this sound familiaar?

Where am I right now. Well, I think this environmental journalism as
practiced today is a sham and a farce and that ther journalists are sheep.
But I still want to be a journalist on a different  beat. I started by
thinking about forming a no for profit corporation to expose the nuclear
waste fiasco. Bu tmaybe journalism would be better. But I woul dneed to know
about risk assessment methodolgies in the nuclear waste disposal business. I
can go to DOE an NRC for this. But I wanted to ask whether there is an
acedemic center devoted specifically to risk assessment. Generic risk
assessment as opposed to food risks, nuc risk, one unifying methodoly. I
could eventually find this but you might have it in you head or on your
campus.

Just for fun I ant to talk about my disease .MD is hilarious, the shrinks are
hilarious. But it is sad too because a lot of MD buy into their shit. MD is
intresting in that with diabetes the range between severity of the disease
between suffers is ssay 10, as an example two suffers could use s10x diabets
dose different. With Md the spread is like a 1000. There are people who
really"have it" , at least the genes but who never get into an environemtn or
situation to trigger it off. So there are really more than 1.3% of the
popualtion that has the gene. I dont like to talk about MD really, I call it
Roys syndrome because it is unique to me an my family. My uncle had it,Dad
had it and did a masterful job of covering it up. He never say a shrink,never
a pill. Of course he was the world greatest pessimist and was depressed a lot
of the time. But that was dad what can I say.His brother was a research
geologist. He didnt have any hope of controlling his environment. He commited
cuicide(I think) but this is lost in the family achives.

My model of Roys syndrome is different than the conventional model of MD. A
shrink readin gthe above would cry"heresy,hersey, throw the manic in the
hospiotal, his lithium iis too low" But I can prove that Roys syndrome is as
much situaltional and environemental besed  on my case history. (Available on
request to MD or relatives)

Gee, it sure would be neat to see if Im right. Lets see somewhere somebody
has tried to make sense of Md. Apparently they concluded it is all
bichemical, genetic. I don tthink so. In 20 or 50 years theyll catch up with
me and get it right. I had some lucky breaks in gettin got where i am. It was
a high risk venture. Sow what, if you aqre careful you can make what appears
to be high risk stuff pretty tame.

To wit: Dad was an artilleery observer for a medium (155mm) artillery
batallion in WWII. He survived without a scratch. i was talkin got someone
who was with a 105 batallion. He said the damn observers were cannon fodder.
How is it that dads batallion never lost 1 although they lost a radioman and
got one wounded. Because they were smarter and more mature than your ordinary
observer. He was 30 at Noramndy.Old for a 2ndLt. Dad was always very safety
concious in his own way. Had sticker onpassenger side, said fasteenseatbelt.
And he wouldnt go anywhere until everyone buckled up. Some of his batasllion
stuff is luck, but the other thing is they were just good(let me digresss a
forward artillery observer goes to the front lines or beyond to observe and
adjust artillery fire. He is in contact with his battery by radio and has a
radioman.)They were good: American artillery was considered best in war, VII
Corps served well, 155 were bigger, three times power of 105, needed powder
bags, had no integral charge. Im rambling... I could do this war stuff
forever. Thats one of my few passions, despite or because I never was in
 Vietnma. Deferred because of eyue injury. Didnt have emotioinal trauma.Of
course, dad said dont go. Was I supposed to go to Canada? Eh, Vietnam, ugly.
Lets get outl of here.

Books I read widely

Ugh, I am having acute anxiety attackis. Call my psychiatrist. Better yet let
me talk to someone who use s a lap top computer.I am starting to get worried
that I am too reliant on this wonderful little toy. I wan t to but a tape
backup for starters. I dumped coffee (not a lotg) on it the other day.
Screwed up fw things for a while, OK now. What do you do about this.It is goin
g to be more important as I get  into real research. I could lose 6 mo a year
of work in on e fell swoop. Any thoughs?

Ineed to give you some background to go further. Maybe I should ship this and
write the next one. wait for feedback form the first one.Depending on whether
positive or negative, will decide whjere to ship nexy one. How do you set up
a newsgroup? fascinating, make a group called: alt.rubber-padded-room or
alt.garbage-can.sensitive.

Bernard Fall