We're home! by way of Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, South Carolina and Georgia

It's October 14th, 2009, and we're sitting in the mountains of North Carolina, feeling SO blessed by the past four months.

Two or three days ago (I'm too tired to count) we drove 17 hours from St. Louis, MO to Tryon, NC, slept five hours, then headed toward South Carolina and Georgia.

In the past 32 hours we spoke in Aiken, South Carolina and Augusta, Georgia, showing the film "Proposition One: Peace Through Reason," and brainstorming with other activists. How can we bring the hope of nuclear disarmament and the dangers of nuclear weapons industries to the consciousness of young people who weren't born in the shadow of the cold war and its films? How about to people such as those at the heavily-contaminated "national sacrifice zone," the Savannah River Site (SRS), who are afraid of losing their jobs and have been told by the Department of Energy that SRS is "the cleanest" of all nuclear weapons production sites and they mustn't worry.  Right.

Today we were on an hour-long segment of Anthony Esposito's AM radio (1230) talk show in Augusta 15 hours ago, at which I suggested that it might be time to emulate the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, which organized an event in 1983 when 16,000 people surrounded Rocky Flats, Colorado, demanding it be shut down.  The radio host found that a good time to stop for a commercial.

I hadn't finished making my point, but we were able later to reassure listeners that Proposition One isn't intended to put people out of a job; rather, the intent is to make sure the money saved from halting nuclear weapons production will be used to pay people while they retrain, to help corporations retool, to mass-produce solar panels and windmills and other truly clean and renewable energy systems instead of weapons of any sort, as well as to clean up the radioactive and chemical messes that have already been made.

Just as the automobile industries were transformed into war industries during World War II to fight fascism, Jay likes to say, war industries can be transformed into clean energy industries to fight global warming, a much more unifying enemy.

Back soon.  Nice to be home,

Ellen

From Idaho to Utah to Colorado, with a side trip to Wyoming and Montana....

So, now, it's two weeks later already, and again we're going to have to encapsule the multitude of experiences.  Traveling takes so much TIME!

Idaho was beautiful, and so were the activists in Boise, where we had two great events.  Liz Woodruff of Snake River Alliance did an incredible job of planning, promoting and hosting the "Dinner For Disarmament" at the Shangri-La Tea Room (a wonderful event!).

She also kindly included us in the "Peace Corner" at Boise's annual  Hyde Park Street Fair at Camel's Back Park, combining forces of SRA, Vets for Peace, the Idaho Peace Coalition & Prop1 to hold down the peace vibe in a blue corner of red Idaho.  And Liz's family provided us elegant hospitality (Thanks, Dr. & Mrs. Briggs!).

After Boise, we went to West Yellowstone and spent the night with the Buffalo Field Campaign folks before heading through Yellowstone National Park.

The Buffalo Field Campaign was established to protect the buffalo from cattle ranchers who want them killed when they leave the Park.  People come from all over the country in the dead of winter to go into the park and not only keep watch, but respectfully (with head lowered and body in a non-threatening pose) turn buffalo around if they're headed in the wrong direction.  The young people at the lodge were incredibly healthy!  They spent the summer cutting, hauling, and splitting wood to heat the lodge all winter.

During our day-long drive through Yellowstone, we saw bubbling mud pits, spouting geysers, elk, antelope, and numerous buffalo.  We had a profound experience with one old bull who chose to walk across the road right in front of the van.  On the way out of Yellowstone on the last day of summer, it snowed!

We spent the night in Bozeman, Montana, with Jim MacDonald and Genevieve Calmes, and their boy River, hiked up to a waterfall, then took off for Pocatello, Idaho, where (former DC teacher and Statehood activist) Tom Briggs arranged a room at the university and hosted us in his home.

Early the next morning we went to the Idaho National Labs, where (thanks to Beatrice Brailsford of Snake River Alliance) we were given a VIP tour of the cleanup currently underway.  We'll post separately about that experience.

We then rejoined allies Snake River Alliance and  HEAL Utah in Salt Lake City for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "workshop" (hearings) about re-classifying depleted uranium (DU) as a waste stream, affecting whether DU should be brought in massive quantities into Utah.  (Vanessa Pierce and Christopher Thomas of HEAL Utah, and Beatrice Brailsford of the SRA, were at the table for the good guys!) Then, with the public allowed only 15 minutes of testimony at the very end of two full days of hearings, Jay managed a quote in the Salt Lake Tribune with his testimony:

"Activist Jay Marx of the Washington-based Proposition 1 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament likewise told officials he questioned the need to increase production of the waste. Nuclear energy is history and renewables are the future, he said, so there's no reason to expect the quantities that the NRC foresees."

Before we left, we got a glimpse of HEAL's downtown offices as they were busy preparing a follow-up press conference on the Utah state capitol steps, and caught an interview with their newest staff member, brought on specifically to focus the public (and Utah's two red senators) on ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) when it comes up in the spring.  Go, HEAL!

From Salt Lake City we drove to Colorado, by way of Canyonlands and Arches national parks, incredibly beautiful places to wake up in the morning. 

 We drove through Moab, Utah, and visited the site where uranium mine tailings are finally being cleaned up from where they've been resting beside and polluting the Colorado River for the past 50 years, 2 miles from downtown.

It was disturbing to see that the only thing keeping the dust from flying as they dig was a sprinkler.  At Idaho National Labs, the contractor has built a structure around where they're working so none of the dust escapes.  


In Colorado Jay gave a great talk at the University in Boulder (thanks to Duke Austin of Students for Peace & Justice).

Meanwhile Ellen videotaped a presentation by Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center which was happening simultaneously in another building across campus.  Leroy Moore, a co-founder of RMP&J, passed around a petition asking that Rocky Flats not be opened to the public as a nature preserve, as currently planned.

We also visited RMP&J offices and heard about their work.  They have a wonderful photograph of some of the 16,000 people who linked hands and surrounded Rocky Flats in 1983, one of the many citizen actions which ultimately led to the temporary shutdown of that plutonium pit four years later, and final shutdown in 1992.


We visited Rocky Flats, and were surprised to discover that there's virtually no security, and perhaps a dozen construction firms have offices right beside or on Rocky Flats.

So now, as the leaves are turning yellow and red and the nights are turning cold, we're on our way home, and ready to be back.

Today we leave for Oklahoma, where we'll be speaking in Oklahoma City (on the 4th) and Norman (Oct 3rd), where we came through early on our tour back in June.

Then we'll be going to Kansas City, where we have a series of events the 5th - 7th, Columbia (the 8th), and St. Louis, Missouri.  In St. Louis we'll be at St. Louis Public Library, Carpenter branch,  3309 S. Grand Ave., on October 10th at 3 pm.

From there we drive to The Farm in Tennessee on the 11th, then to Aiken, South Carolina, then back home to DC.

Ellen will be going on to North Carolina and Florida, Jay will stay in DC.

Meanwhile we're planning our next tours.  Ellen will be in Vermont for town hall meetings in February, and hopes to connect with folks who have already expressed interest in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York.  Jay may go to support the Los Alamos Blockade over spring break (proposed at Think Outside the Bomb by Lisa Fithian), and will join Ellen in New York the first week in May for the NPT review at the UN.  Then we'll head north and west and try to get to all the other states we weren't able to visit on this tour.

Please let us know if you want us to visit your town & group!

Ellen, Jay, Troy and Sophia the Peace Dog

Next stops: Boise, Yellowstone, and Salt Lake City

I can't believe it's been so long since we had a chance to blog.  The journey has been near-constant since New Mexico.

Since Albuquerque's "Think Outside The Bomb" we've been to Mesa Verde, Colorado, where the Anasazi (or "ancient ones")  lived on the mesa for centuries, then under cliffs for 100+ years, then mysteriously vanished.  It's said they became the Pueblo and Hopi.  Conjecture is that climate change forced them to leave.

We had planned to stop at The Black Hole to return the non-functional geiger counter, but they were closed. Anyone want a vintage bright yellow geiger counter as a prop for street theater....?

When driving through Taos we noticed the Peace House, and turned around to visit for a few minutes, wishing we had known about them earlier so we could have given some advance notice.  Please send contact information of people you think we should meet as we tour the eastern and northern states next spring!  (et@prop1.org)

In Santa Barbara, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and San Jose, we  were hosted by wonderful WILPF activists such as Shirley Lin Kinoshita, and spoke at six events.  There was enthusiastic discussion about a potential voter initiative.  We also went to Vandenberg Air Force Base with a dozen hardy souls in the wee hours of August 23rd, where Father Louis Vitale and Sister Megan Rice from Nevada Desert Experience were arrested for trying to deliver a letter from Japanese people asking that the US stop testing missiles.

We spoke to a Veterans For Peace group in Eureka, California, where we were urged to put our videos on YouTube.  May the time and know-how materialize!

In the tiny town of Markleeville, California, near Reno, high in the pine-clad mountains, we stayed with Marie Bravo of Code Pink, talked with two of her activist friends from Lake Tahoe, and enjoyed the sound of bears roaming the streets in the middle of the night.

The next day we dropped Jay off to network (etc.) at Burning Man in the playas north of Reno, Nevada.  Troy and I then drove to Laytonville, California, to rest a couple of days with friends.  On the way from there to Portland we stopped by the Peace Center of  Nevada County in Grass Valley, CA, which was founded decades ago by Utah Phillips, again wishing we had known they were there so we could have given some advance notice.  Next time!

In Portland, Oregon, we were hosted by Carol Urner of WILPF Disarm.  Ellen was interviewed on radio and public access television.  During the event on September 6th, where David Rovics sang his beautiful song "Hiroshima," Ellen was sorely missing Jay's charisma as she tried to keep folks interested, when Jay showed up, scruffy and exhilarated, having hitchhiked from Burning Man.  He charmed everyone, of course.

We stayed a couple of days with Laurie Solomon near Mt. St. Helens, Washington, who had helped organize the events in Portland, and then headed to Seattle, where we visited with Geov Parrish (Peace Action Washington) and several others who have started a nuclear weapons strategy group.

The next day we visited Jackie Hudson and Sue Ablow of Ground Zero, the Trident submarine base watchdog in Bangor, WA.  Jackie spent several years in prison for a Plowshares action recently.  Their building was burned down when no one was present, but has been rebuilt by volunteers and will be ready for them to occupy soon.

After a feast and tour, we took a ferry back to Seattle, then headed for Hanford Nuclear Weapons Reservation near Richland, Washington, on the Columbia River.

At Hanford, we were stopped by police.  We'd love to have a photo of the security guard who told us all sorts of stuff while we waited for the county police. For example, he said there have been 300 mini-tremors in the hills behind Hanford this year!  This is not the sort of information that makes the news.  He asked us not to photograph him as his "right."  ?????

South of Hanford, we slept at Stonehenge, on the Columbia River.  Stonehenge, which is at the same latitude and of the same dimensions as the original in England, was built by THE Sam Hill after WW I to remember the sacrifices of war.  You remember, the fellow who inspired the question, "What in the Sam Hill are you doing now?"  Unfortunately, the signs in the area now imply that he was glorifying the courage and patriotism of the soldiers who died, but his own statement was more anti-war.

In Missoula, Montana, we were hosted by Darla Torrez of Seeds of Peace Collective, and Barry and Sue Adams arranged for us to spend the day and evening with Students For Peace and Justice at the University of Montana, and with Women For Peace (a WILPF branch).

Missoula is a lovely town nestled at the confluence of five rivers, surrounded by mountains, and inhabited by fascinating people.  It has had a peace sign on the mountainside for 30 years. 

Ellen painted the third side of the trailer on Saturday in Missoula, near the weekly street market and the 14th annual Hempfest being celebrated side-by-side along the Clark Fork of the Yellowstone River.  All sorts of folks stopped by to ask questions and sign the petition.  We've gathered over 300 names of people who want to know more.

Right now we're in a beautiful log three-story log "cabin" on a lake in mid-Idaho, guests of  Liz Woodruff, the organizer of the Boise "Dinner for Disarmament" tomorrow night at  Shangri-La Tea Room.  Sophia the peace dog is in heaven, running and swimming and exploring the woods.

Next on the tour:  Yellowstone National Park (and the Buffalo Field Campaign), and Salt Lake City.  Then Colorado.  Let us know if you want us to stop by!

Ellen, Jay, Troy, and Sophia

Think Outside The Bomb youth conference was excellent

The Think Outside The Bomb conference was excellent -- engaging and highly informed speakers, engaged and very sharp youth, some 50+ from around the country who got together to figure out what to do about nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. The conference is organized each year by young people for young people.

There were powerful presentations by several Native Americans who work on behalf of those most affected by the mining of nuclear material and its aftermath, as well as talks and workshops by a broad spectrum of other nuclear experts and activists. We spoke about Proposition One In 2010 Campaign, of course, and were invited to speak in Kansas City, Missouri on our way back east by a strong contingent of creative folk.

A high point was the field trip to a “reclaimed” mine in the nearby Grants uranium belt, near the foot of what is now known as Mt. Taylor, known to the Dineh (Navaho) people as the southernmost of the four sacred mountains that border their tribal lands. At least the US was finally, recently, persuaded not to mine there further. . .

The final day of the conference took us all up to Bandelier National Monument, yet one more site of exquisite natural beauty, and another place that was once home to the ancient Anasazi, or Pueblo and Hopi ancestors. Our attempted hike into the backcountry with 10 intrepid nuclear abolitionists took us first up to the summit of the closest mountain (Frijoles Mt. – overlooking the whole area, even down into Santa Fe, some 40 miles southeast. Oh, and a solid hawk’s eye view of Los Alamos National Laboratory to boot — Bandelier’s next door neighbor). By the time we worked our way over to Frijoles canyon, it was too late for us to head down to the creek waters and the backcountry ruins and petroglyphs, so we had to content ourselves with knowing they were there, and head back to finish, and depart. . .

Leaving the conference, Proposition One determined to head north through Taos, and ultimately to take our friend Steve to help harvest fruit at the organic farm he calls home, the White Buffalo Organic Farm in Paonia, Colorado (the oldest organic farm in the state, right on the bank of the North Fork of the Gunnison River).  Beautiful.  Tough to leave, sad to leave him there, but after a handy repair job on the front of the trailer, and switching out the right rear tire, and a few hugs and warm goodbyes, we were back on our way.

More to come. . .

Jay, Ellen, Troy, and Sophia

Too Much To Report In One Message

We've had many experiences since our last report, too many for one posting.  I'm in Oakland, continuing to paint the trailer.  These photos were taken while we camped at Bandolier National Park in Los Alamos, New Mexico with youth from all over the country who had attended the Think Outside The Bomb conference in Albuquerque August 13-16.

Wednesday we talk in Berkeley, Thursday in Santa Cruz, and Friday in San Jose.  From there we head to Burning Man near Reno, NV, then up to Portland, visiting various spots in Oregon for a week.  We'll announce dates and places as soon as we know them.

“NON-RADIOACTIVE” NUCLEAR REVIEW HEADS WEST AGAIN

[Please feel free to use all or part of the following press release]

PROPOSITION ONE IN 2010! CAMPAIGN
PO Box 27217, Washington, DC 20038

August 15, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jay Marx (marxjay@gmail.com) or Ellen Thomas (et@prop1.org)
cell 202/210-3886 or 202/368-4690, ofc. 202/682-4282

“NON-RADIOACTIVE” NUCLEAR REVIEW HEADS WEST AGAIN

Proposition One aims to put Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion on the ballot in every state; Santa Barbara event coincides with Vandenberg AFB missile launch

WASHINGTON, DC – The Proposition One in 2010! Campaign, a national multi-media action tour that educates the public on the need and opportunity to eliminate nuclear weapons, will present at the Santa Barbara Central Library at 2pm on Wednesday, August 22, returning to the West Coast from an outstanding four-day youth conference with Think Outside The Bomb in Albuquerque, NM.

Later that night, Proposition One will join anti-nuclear activists from across Southern California to protest the expense and waste of continuing US militarism at the missile launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

From there the campaign will head north to the East Bay (the 26th), Santa Cruz (the 27th), and San Jose (the 28th), then on to Mendocino and Humboldt Counties in California, through Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Wyoming, on the way to Boise, Idaho for an event on the 17th of September. From there they will go to Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma and Missouri on their way home.

This is the second time the campaign has been through Santa Barbara on a four-month tour of the western United States, after traveling across the country from Washington, D.C.

The troupe is headed by Washington, DC, peace activist Ellen Thomas, who maintained a round-the-clock anti-nuclear vigil in front of the White House for 18 years, and in 1993 helped coordinate the successful DC Ballot Initiative 37 for Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion, which has been introduced into US Congress nine times since 1994 by DC’s Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Campaign Coordinator Jay Marx says, “We use film, stories, songs and facts to educate people on everything we wish we didn’t need to know about nuclear weapons - from Alpha particles to X-rays, from Americium to Yellowcake, from Alamogordo to Zimbabwe, and from ambivalence to di-Zaster (or Nuclear Zero).”

The program includes the film “Proposition One, Peace Through Reason,” discussion with Proposition One co-founder Ellen Thomas, a review of the state of nuclear disarmament with activist Jay Marx, musical inspiration, and audience discussion and organizing.

The Summer Action Tour kicked off in May in North Georgia’s Nacoochee Valley, and will conclude October 11th, tabling at a Bonnie Raitt benefit concert in Columbia, South Carolina.

Tour dates are still developing throughout the western US, but currently scheduled upcoming tour dates and locations include:

Aug. 20 – Las Vegas, NV – Nevada Desert Experience
Aug. 22 – Santa Barbara, CA – Santa Barbara Central Library 2 pm; Vandenberg Air Force Base midnight
Aug. 26 – Berkeley, CA – Redwood Gardens – 7pm
Aug 27 – Santa Cruz, CA
Aug. 28 – San Jose, CA
Aug 29 – Laytonville, CA (Mendocino County)
Aug 30-31 – Humboldt County, CA
Sept. 1-? – Ashland, Corvallis, and Portland, Oregon (in that order)
Sept. ? –Washington
Sept. ? – Montana
Sept. ? - Wyoming
Sept. 17 – Boise, ID
Sept. ? – Utah
Sept. ? – Colorado
? - Oklahoma
? - Kansas City, Columbia, and St. Louis, MO
Oct. 11 – Columbia, SC

Please contact the Proposition One in 2010! Campaign to endorse the campaign, invite speakers, or for more information.

Contact: Jay Marx (marxjay@gmail.com) or Ellen Thomas (et@prop1.org)
cell 202/210-3886 or 202/368-4690, ofc. 202/682-4282

Available for Radio, TV or Print Interviews are:
Ellen Thomas – DC Activist, White House Vigiler, NucNews editor, Proposition One co-founder, WILPF Disarm Committee Co-Chair
Jay Marx – Writer, Activist, former Washington Peace Center Coordinator
Steve Mobray – Musician, Teacher, Activist

Weblinks:
http://prop1.org
http://propositiononein2010.blogspot.com (Campaign Blog)

Endorsers include: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Nuclear Watch South, Code Pink, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, AfterDowningStreet, Peace Action, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Nevada Desert Experience, Think Outside The Bomb, Washington Peace Center, Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Committee….

Palo Verde, the largest Nuclear Power Plant

We drove to the largest nuclear power facility in the U.S. (located on 4,000 acres in the deep desert).

"Due to its location in the Arizona desert, Palo Verde is the only nuclear generating facility in the world that is not located adjacent to a large body of above-ground water. Instead, it evaporates water from the treated sewage of several nearby municipalities to meet its cooling needs. 20 billion US gallons (76,000,000 m³) of treated water are evaporated each year. Bechtel Power Corporation was the Architect/Engineer/Constructor for the facility initially under the direction of the Arizona Nuclear Power Project.

"Palo Verde was of such strategic importance, due to a variety of its features, that it and Phoenix were documented by the former Soviet Union as target locations in the event of nuclear conflict during the Cold War. The site team and nearby town of Wintersburg remain a key focus of work in regard to homeland security, ranking in importance along with Arizona's major cities, military bases, ports of entry, and tourist sites. Security guards working for the utility are armed with semi-automatic weapons.

"In an Arizona Republic article dated February 22, 2007, it was announced that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had decided to place Palo Verde into Category 4, making it one of the most monitored nuclear power plant in the United States. The decision was made after the NRC discovered that electrical relays in a diesel generator did not function during tests in July and September 2006.

"The finding came as the 'final straw' for the NRC, after Palo Verde had several citations over safety concerns and violations over the preceding years, starting with the finding of a 'dry pipe' in the plant's emergency core-cooling system in 2004.

"The selection of the present site for Palo Verde was controversial. Critics claim that the site was not the first choice because it was in the middle of nowhere, had no water supply, and put the Phoenix-Metro area into jeopardy in the event of even a minor accident, because of the prevailing westerly winds, would endanger the capital. Critics claimed that that site was selected over alternatives because it was owned by a relative of Keith Turley, who received almost $2 million for the land. Keith Turley was the president of APS (Arizona Power Service)."
(Wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station

--

Meanwhile:

Ariz. nuclear worker found with pipe bomb; plant locked down
Nov 03, 2007 AP
http://www.sunjournal.com/node/102817

Arizona Farewell

Arizona, despite the crippling heat (108 after dark!), was an amazing experience.

In Phoenix on August 6th we met with some folks at the Fair Trade Café, thanks to the efforts of Liz Hourican of Code Pink, who also kindly hosted us for two nights, and took us on a tour of Phoenix highlights. Especially impressive was a statue created from melted-down weapons, pictured here.

On August 7th we stopped by Senator John McCain's office building, and later presented to a fine crew of uber-dedicated anti-nuke folks at the Quaker Meeting House, where we stayed one night thanks to the kindness of Jason and his wife.

We also had three excellent days in Tucson, where we stayed at the Pima Friends’ (Quaker) Meeting House, managed by Jeanmarie Simpson, a playwright and actress, and by Pat Birnie, both members of WILPF Disarm Committee.

The sun was setting on the 8th as we pulled into the Cancer Survivor’s Pavilion at Reid Park, where the Tucson Raging Grannies presented a colorful collection of great songs and a moving memorial to the Nagasaki bombing.

The next day we showed the film “The Strangest Dream,” about the life and work of Joseph Rotblat, the only nuclear physicist to leave the Manhattan Project before its “success” in 1945. He later won a Nobel Prize for his work in nuclear medicine, and later still won another Nobel – the Peace Prize – for helping organize the international Pugwash Peace Conferences. It is a beautiful and inspiring story, and was appreciated by the audience of 30+ in the basement of the downtown Tucson Library. We particularly appreciate this film because it shows that great minds 50 years ago were saying the same things Proposition One says...

Afterwards, WILPF gave a sensational pot luck back at the Quaker house and we spent two delicious hours eating, talking and planning with some of Tucson’s finest activists.

Monday, August 10, we spent organizing, planning ahead and following up, taking advantage of the road respite that the Pima Friends House provided. The highlight of the day was meeting with Jack and Felice Cohen-Joppa, longtime editors of the Nuclear Resister newsletter, and their friend John Hyde, another spectacularly dedicated Quaker anti-nuclear activist who has endured several jail stints over the course of his decades of peace work.

We talked at length about their history, major moments in the movement, and what the future may hold. We were lucky to capture part of the interview on video, but as always seems to be the case, some of the gems were missed, like the fact that, though Tucson has no nuclear industries per se, the nearby Air Base houses the “Warthog” planes that are primarily used in dropping depleted uranium (DU) munitions, and Felice has a “Permanent Ban and Bar” order for her repeated anti-DU demonstrations there. (Jack has received a similar order for passing out pro-peace literature at air shows.) Next summer on the 4th of July, they will celebrate 30 years of the Nuclear Resister (and their sister paper in Wisconsin, Nukewatch Quarterly) with a demonstration at the Oak Ridge plant in Tennessee.

Great colorful murals all over Tucson. Next time we’re back, we'll do a photo safari of Tucson murals… That, and a trip to the Atlas Missile museum, which displays the control room, silo, and missile (decommissioned like all Atlas missiles since 1965). Considering the welcome we had here, and the enthusiasm of the people we met, who knows if it might not be soon ... to help put Proposition One on the ballot in 2010!

On Tuesday, August 11th, we regretfully said goodbye to Tucson and headed east towards New Mexico, on our way to Think Outside the Bomb in Albuquerque. We were at White Sands as the sun set, a strange and beautiful sacred land, which has been bombarded for decades by toxic ammunition and missiles.

We spent the night at 9,000+ feet in Sierra Blanca high above Ruidoso, NM, seeking cool weather. It was a joy, after so much hot desert, to awake at dawn among tall pines and grass at a scenic overlook, chilly enough for a sweater, cuddling up to Sophia the peace dog, who had been avoiding contact because of the heat ever since Los Angeles. We wound down the mountain to get as close as possible to the Trinity Test Site near Alamogordo. We were stopped by a gate and mountain at Stallion Range Camp, a small military town, and photographed some strangely shaped clouds rising from beyond the mountain. At first we thought they must be testing weapons, later wondered if they were making artificial clouds for weather purposes, probably we’ll never know….

Unfortunately, our geiger counter isn’t working, so we weren’t able to gauge the radioactivity near the Trinity test site, 64+ years after the world’s first atomic explosion, but we do intend to get satisfaction on our $80 investment from the owner of The Black Hole, where we purchased it, when we return to Los Alamos with the TOTB crew on Saturday night.

Now we’re back in New Mexico at the first morning of the Think Outside The Bomb conference, surrounded by eager young minds, where we'll be until Sunday. More about this next posting….

Ellen and Jay, Steve and Troy

The Half-Closed Reactor of San Onofre

We took a day trip south from LA to San Onofre nuclear power plant much too near San Clemente, which hangs on the cliffs above beautiful beaches. There on the Pacific shore, sandwiched between two popular beaches for swimming and surfing, loom two ominous domes. . .

"Unit 1 is no longer in service. This reactor was a first generation Westinghouse pressurized water reactor that operated for 25 years, closing permanently in 1992. Units 2 and 3, Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactors, continue to operate and generate 1,172 MWe and 1,178 MWe, respectively. The plant is operated by Southern California Edison. Edison International, parent of SCE, holds 78% ownership in the plant; San Diego Gas & Electric Company, 20%; and the City of Riverside Utilities Department, 1.8%.
The environment is protected from potential unexpected releases of radioactivity by strong, spherical containment buildings. This containment structure feature was missing at the reactors at Chernobyl.
The closest fault line is the Christianitos fault, which is supposedly inactive." (Wikepedia)

All well and good, but consider the following!

"San Onofre safety lapses disclosed" - Los Angeles Times, 1/15/08

"More falsified documents investigated at San Onofre" - North County Times, 6/28/08

"San Onofre's Problems Continue" - February 25, 2009 Voice of San Diego (excellent!)

"Regulators criticize safety "culture" at San Onofre nuke plant" - North County Times, 5/7/09

Please remember, one end product of the nuclear reactor cycle (plutonium) is the beginning product of the nuclear weapons cycle. . .
What if we put the 52 BILLION U.S. dollars each year currently going to nuclear weapons towards the development and deployment of renewable and sustainable energy solutions and environmental restoration, instead?

ALSO: Please know that our journeys are also being charted at the WILPF Disarm site!

et

Fare well, SoCal...

Farewell, southern California, at least until our return to Santa Barbara Public Library at 2:00 pm on Saturday, August 22nd, and then to Vandenberg Air Force Base at 11:30 pm that night.

We've had a multi-layered experience in our "No War" van as we've explored the campgrounds, beaches and mountains of southern California. It's a journey first to meet other activists, especially antinuclear ones, and to collect their stories as we share ours. It's also, for all of us, a return to places important to our childhoods. We visited the golden hills of Palos Verdes, on the coast south of Los Angeles, where Ellen spent the first 14 years of her life, and found Steve's birthplace in the lovely hills of Upland. (We plan to visit Jay's childhood home in Colorado, and Troy's birthplace in Ohio.) We toasted at Venice Beach with our signs and literature on display in a parking lot (with no result), and paid a short, non-productive visit to the Los Angeles Catholic Workers, who are very busy helping people personally, and cynical about the political process.

However, there were terrific contacts along the way.

We joined and photographed an Iran Free Speech Solidarity rally just before we left San Francisco, and spent a great evening with David and Carol Lee Krieger in their beautiful home in the Santa Barbara Hills. David is the creative force behind Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and Carol Lee is an ardent clean water advocate.

We also connected with Sandy Stites of Santa Barbara WILPF, who arranged for us to show our film and speak at the Santa Barbara Public Library.

We encountered a "Free Speech" (only with a permit) zone in Venice Beach; Jay has a citation to prove it.

We lunched in Los Angeles on Saturday with Roger Easton, who is the glue that binds the Los Angeles Area Nuclear Disarmament Coalition.... (more next message)

et