A few people have written to say, essentially, that in the US the nuke plant saga in Japan is really obscuring the fact that even if there was no nuke plant saga in Japan, an incredibly horrible catastrophe has occurred. The human and economic costs are massive. And these people are right, so let's not obscure that fact, though I think it's in part due to the understandable issue that the rest of the tragedy is something we can comprehend, while the nuclear is both unfolding and uncertain, and also in the 'scary monster' unknown category. Like scary monsters it may not prove to be all that real, though we'll see..