Radioactive Waste & TNN's Comercials for Blind Date

The BBQ Pit
1

To the insensitve ignorant bigotted bitch who phoned into TNN’s 800 number to tell them about a blind date experience for use in their commercials for that network’s new show Blind Date, may you go the rest of your close-minded life being set up by friends and family on bad blind dates and never find the love you’re looking for.

The woman (and I use that term loosely) in question related a story about how she was on a blind date and asked the guy what he did for a living. When he replied that he was a “Radioactive Waste Disposal Technician” she instantly ruled him out as a possible partner, saying that she’d rather wait for “someone who had that special glow in the right way” instead.

Damnit people, I know Radioactive Waste is a hotbutton issue, and nobody wants it in their backyards, but don’t take out your dislike of the material on the people who take responsibility for seeing that it gets disposed of in as safe a manner as possible.

I’m sure that the caller apreciates that modern medicine can diagnose bone problems and find cavities in her teeth using x-rays. And heaven forbid that she or someone she loves comes down with cancer, but if they do, there is the option of radiotherapy treatment.

Guess what? Nuclear medicine generates waste, and someone’s going to have to process that waste. The hospital or dentist can’t just toss those isotopes in their dumpster out back.

Then there’s Nuclear Power and the Nuclear Weapons stockpile. Even if we were to stop using both of these today, that radioactive material would not just go away, it would have to be dealt with. You know who would deal with that waste? Disposal Technicians.

The Nuclear Industry is highly regulated, because the consequences of something going wrong are so high. Because of this, there are controls in place to keep someone from bringing a little of their work home with them. Unlike your friendly garbage collector or sewage treatment worker, a radwaste technician doesn’t come home with the “scent” of their work clinging to their clothing and body. They do NOT “glow”.

They do however, need love just as much as anyone else does, and I hope that woman’s blind date found somoene who could look past his occupation instead of dismissing him joking comments based out of ignorance and fear.

2

Look, shithead…maybe the woman wants to have kids, didja ever think? Healthy kids? With the right number of arms, legs & eyeballs?

HEEELLOOOOoo-oH?

Maybe Radioactive Materials Handling firms are as safe & reliable as you suggest. But, given the complete lack of ethics in the remainder of the business community, I doubt it.

So it just may be that she’s got the right idea.

3

This is exactly the kind of ignorance I’m talking about. If any worker in the nuclear industry had offspring with an unusual number of appendages or sensory organs, it’d be damn hard for the industry to cover up. The press would be all over it like gold trim on a lowrider.

Where are these reports?

4

Does “Radioactive Waste Disposal Technician”, necessarily mean that he’s lugging around spent fuel rods in a sack?

5

Uh, ever heard of the “Weekly World News”? I mean, he’s now a Marine and all, but Bat Boy hasn’t exactly been hiding in a cave the last 10 years.

And what about Peter Parker? Ever heard of him? I still flinch everytime I see a spider in a laboratory with nuclear waste.

But seriously, two words:

Karen Silkwood

6

Ouch, Whistlepig. That really hurt. Are you going to bring Homer Simpson into this too? Probably not, because it wasn’t his kids that had three eyes, it was Blinky the Fish.

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Homer Simpson? Too easy. A fella starts making his jokes too easy and the next thing you know he’s watching, “America’s Funniest Pet Videos” with the sound on and buying tickets to Carrot Top.

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So I guess it is OK for a guy to refuse to date a nurse or anyone who works with people who are contagious. I mean, who would want to date someone who could come home withs AIDS or something worse? Yeah, come to think about it, why would anyone marry a cop, or a firefighter when they may be dead so soon. It is not fair to select for your breeding mate someone who may not be around to be a good parent. Some proffessions should just never marry.

9

Okay, I understand that this particular individuals experience was based upon ignorance rather than an actual risk, but how is it so unreasonable to to decide not to date someone based upon their profession.

Most nurses, especially new ones, do go through a period of “acclimatization” when they contact numerous common-cold type germs, and can be consistently sick for months on end, which isn’t very sexy in itself, and can get you sick as well.

If the through of your SO being a firefighter or cop simply makes you too nervous, then maybe you shouldn’t date a firefighter. I don’t know about cops, but the firefighters whom I do know certainly have no issues with finding a number of women ready to date and marry them.

Love is imperfect and unfair. Ugly people don’t have the advantages that beautiful people have. Old people don’t have the advantage that young people have. Rich people have advantages that poor people might not. People with personality disorders might have trouble finding healthy relationships.

I’d have no problem dating a Nuclear Waste Disposal Technician (although the job sounds boring), but my reaction to the Technician rejected by the woman:

tough shit.

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And men.

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[Insert obligitory joke about sliding down a fireman’s pole here]

The comparison to nurses and firefighters isn’t entirely accurate. When a nurse or a firefighter gets dumped because of their occupation, the dumper doesn’t make ignorant prejudiced jokes about the dumpee. Police might get a “he was a pig so I dumped him” comment.

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People, people, I think that we must be being whooshed here. No one on this might board could be making this kind of a statement with a straight face (could they?)

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Never underestimate the power of ignorance. Why else has it taken The Straight Dope 30 years to fight it, and it’s still going strong?

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Semi-straight face.

No 3 eyeballed babies, but maybe birth defects or a spouce who dies young of cancer.

15

And this is justification for making jokes?