{"id":12032,"date":"2024-12-29T23:31:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T04:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=12032"},"modified":"2026-01-27T22:44:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T03:44:49","slug":"on-the-death-of-jimmy-carter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=12032","title":{"rendered":"On the Death of Jimmy Carter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/a><\/span><\/span>I\u2019m a Cana\u00addi\u00adan. You know, from that coun\u00adtry just to the north of the U.S. which Don\u00adald Trump has been loud\u00adly threat\u00aden\u00ading and snig\u00adger\u00ading at. The U.S. has had a lot of Pres\u00adi\u00addents in my life\u00adtime, all of whom Cana\u00addi\u00adans have had to deal with. It has been a bumpy ride. One of them, Jim\u00admy Carter, died today, at the age of 100. Most Cana\u00addi\u00adans have formed a good opin\u00adion of Carter.<\/span><\/p>\n

But when I trav\u00adelled in the U.S. in the 1980s, I was shocked by the way peo\u00adple talked con\u00adtemp\u00adtu\u00adous\u00adly about Jim\u00admy Carter. Oh, how they sneered at him! I couldn\u2019t under\u00adstand it. Back in 1952, an exper\u00adi\u00admen\u00adtal nuclear reac\u00adtor in Cana\u00adda suf\u00adfered a dan\u00adger\u00adous melt\u00addown. This was very ear\u00adly in the devel\u00adop\u00adment of nuclear pow\u00ader, and it was in fact the first pub\u00adlicly known nuclear acci\u00addent. Cana\u00adda asked for help from the small num\u00adber of experts in the field to deal with it. Young Jim\u00admy Carter was then a U.S. Navy lieu\u00adtenant who was work\u00ading on a nuclear sub\u00adma\u00adrine project in Sch\u00adenec\u00adtady, N.Y., not too far away. Carter took a team up to Chalk Riv\u00ader, Ontario to help the men shut\u00adting down the reac\u00adtor. This was an incred\u00adi\u00adbly dan\u00adger\u00adous job that required him and oth\u00aders to be low\u00adered into the reac\u00adtor room on a rope and turn bolts while being bom\u00adbard\u00aded with dead\u00adly radi\u00ada\u00adtion \u2014- a task that had to be per\u00adformed in less than 90 sec\u00adonds for each turn. Carter was warned that he might nev\u00ader have chil\u00addren from the expo\u00adsure. But he was a brave young man.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a>

Chalk Riv\u00ader Nuclear Reactor<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

It aston\u00adished me that there was so much hos\u00adtil\u00adi\u00adty toward a Pres\u00adi\u00addent who had unflinch\u00ading\u00adly cham\u00adpi\u00adoned human rights and democ\u00adra\u00adcy \u2014 but who was dri\u00adven out of office by oil prices which he had no con\u00adtrol over, and a hostage cri\u00adsis that Ronald Rea\u00adgan had secret\u00adly paid off the Ira\u00adni\u00adans to keep going until he could get into office. The trea\u00adso\u00adnous Rea\u00adgan deal was well-known to any\u00adone who cared to know. Final\u00adly, the rea\u00adson dawned on me. Carter was gen\u00aduine\u00adly a coura\u00adgeous man, and there\u2019s noth\u00ading Amer\u00adi\u00adcans hate more than courage. They pre\u00adfer infan\u00adtile macho pos\u00adtur\u00ading. Carter was an intel\u00adli\u00adgent man with an under\u00adstand\u00ading of sci\u00adence. Amer\u00adi\u00adcans REALLY<\/span> hate that. Carter was prin\u00adci\u00adpled and hon\u00adest. Amer\u00adi\u00adcans avoid such peo\u00adple like the plague. Carter was com\u00admit\u00adted to human rights. That\u2019s anoth\u00ader no-no for Amer\u00adi\u00adcans. Carter had real-world mil\u00adi\u00adtary expe\u00adri\u00adence and under\u00adstood the mil\u00adi\u00adtary. Amer\u00adi\u00adcans much pre\u00adfer frauds like Rea\u00adgan, who fought WW2<\/span> from the Hol\u00adly\u00adwood Can\u00adteen, or, in our time, Pres\u00adi\u00addent Bone\u00adspurs. Carter was a sin\u00adcere Chris\u00adt\u00adian, attempt\u00ading through\u00adout his life to fol\u00adlow the best teach\u00adings of Jesus. That\u2019s some\u00adthing Amer\u00adi\u00adcans also despise \u2014 they pre\u00adfer a reli\u00adgion of greed, cru\u00adel\u00adty and pet\u00adty spite. Carter was the gen\u00aduine arti\u00adcle, a real man \u2014- and Amer\u00adi\u00adcans hate that more than any\u00adthing on Earth. They will time and again pre\u00adfer a pho\u00adny, a fraud, a weasel, or a con-artist.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was my harsh assess\u00adment at the time, and I\u2019m afraid that the decades that fol\u00adlowed more than con\u00adfirmed my opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a Cana\u00addi\u00adan. You know, from that coun\u00adtry just to the north of the U.S. which Don\u00adald Trump has been loud\u00adly threat\u00aden\u00ading and snig\u00adger\u00ading at. The U.S. has had a lot of Pres\u00adi\u00addents in my life\u00adtime, all of whom Canadians \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1542],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-ac-blog-2024"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12032"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12061,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12032\/revisions\/12061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}