Category Archives: Commentary

Selecting a Presidential Candidate

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There were three articles in the Sunday, September 02, 2012 Denver Post that were pertinent to the choice for voters. The first was titled “Evaluating Obama’s grade on economy by Robert J. Samuelson of the Washington Post. People usually “vote their pocketbook,” so the state of the economy is crucial to both Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney. Mr. Samuelson leads his article with, “President Obama’s economic report card is at best mediocre. I’d give him a C-plus while acknowledging that presidents usually don’t much influence the economy…For the first six months I’d award him an A-minus; for the rest a C-minus or D.” The latter grade is based on the insistence of Mr. Obama at focusing on the health care law (for his legacy) despite the fact the complex law discouraged job creators from expanding their businesses. The battle over the health care law also created gridlock between the two political parties that dominates politics in Washington, D.C.  Mr. Samuelson writes that there is no way of knowing whether Mr. Obama’s missteps have weakened the economy. “My guess is that Obama’s errors have had a modest effect.”

The second article is by Dave Maney, and is titled “Third vision needed.” The article proposes that Republicans are good at clearing impediments to economic change while Democrats are good at identifying those needing help. The author writes that Democrats “…prescribe an attack on healthy parts of the body to somehow cleanse it and make the sick parts well again. It’s like stabbing yourself in the stomach because you’re having a heart attack—it brings zero relief but lots of additional pain” But then he turns to the Republicans and says “We just need to go back to the way things were in 1984, and we’d be in great shape.” That is characterized as being equivalent to telling an ailing patient in his 70s that they would feel better if they were still 40. I didn’t read an alternative between the two visions presented by the two parties except something to the effect that we need to do things differently in the different world.

My favorite article was titled “American optimism in eye of the beholder” by Ann Sanner and Calvin Woodward of The Associated Press. According to the article, young people continue to be optimistic while older people are pessimistic. There are examples of those in their 50s who have lost optimism for their retirement goals because of the layoffs and reduced value of investments. One fifty year old woman is quoted as saying that she firmly believes in the American Dream “…but in the sense of dreaming it, not grasping it. I’m not seeing anything to strive for; I guess….I’m settling.” “Nearly two thirds lack confident that life for today’s children will be better than it has been for today’s adults…”

There are several disturbing statistics about the pessimism of older voters and the continued optimism of younger people despite their college debts and the dismal employment situation. Mr. Obama has noticed younger people are happier with the current economic situation, and he has arranged many of his campaign appearances on college campuses. No one can accuse him of not being politically astute.

President Obama and Islam

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I just saw the movie “2016 Obama’s America,” and there are references to actions Mr. Obama has taken to make people wonder how close he is to the Muslim religion. Snopes says Mr. Obama said during his Presidential campaign “…it is just wonderful to be back in Oregon, and over the last 15 months we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in fifty….seven states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii…”  Mr. Obama and his staff explained that he was tired and “It’s a sign that my numeracy is getting a little, uh…” His defenders note the long pause between “fifty” and “seven.” Skeptics note that there are 57 member states of the Islamic Conference.

Mark Steyn notes in his book “After America:  Get ready for Armageddon,” that the NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a conversation with Al Jazeera on June 30, 2010 that President Obama had given him some priorities. “One was he wanted me to re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with the dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering.”

I watched the entire video, which is over twenty-one minutes long, and Mr. Bolden articulately described much about what President Obama had done to change NASA. The curious comments about the priorities (mentioned in the movie “2016”) President Obama gave him came just after the one minute mark on the video. Mr. Bolden also mentions that the Al Jazeera appearance had been scheduled to commemorate the one year anniversary of the policy speech President Obama had given in Egypt.

Toby Harnden points out in an article in The Telegraph dated June 3, 2009 there were other curious comment made by President Obama during his Mideast visit to Riyadh and Cairo in 2009. Obama had resisted even using his middle name when he was a candidate for President After his election he said he wanted to “…create a better dialogue so that the Muslim world understands more effectively how the United States but also how the West thinks about many of these difficult issues like terrorism, like democracy…what’s happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and our outreach to Iran…” He also said, “And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” Debbie Schussel provided an update that a reputable survey puts the number of Muslims in the U.S at 1.8 million, which means there are 47 countries with more Muslims Indonesia has more than a hundred times more Muslims than the U.S.

Just another curious set of information about a man the media seems unwilling to vet.

Romney Pick of Paul Ryan

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I have seen news reports of hecklers shouting at Paul Ryan in some of his first campaign speeches with accusing words such as “Why do you want to destroy Medicare?” I suppose the origin of that question is from a Democratic ad on the Internet that accuses, “Paul Ryan’s plan would end Medicare as we know it.” The anti-Ryan ads are playing frequently in places such as Florida where the votes of older residents are crucial. I wonder how long it will be before they resurrect the ad that portrays a Ryan look-alike dumping an elderly woman out of a wheelchair over a cliff.

Both ads bring to mind the observation that it is easier to tell a lie than to explain the truth. Mr. Ryan’s proposals are intended to improve the fiscal strength of Medicare. There would be no changes at all for the older people the ads are intended to scare.  People under 55 would have the option enrolling in Medicare or being given a voucher to enroll in a private insurance policy.

So let’s get this straight. The Ryan proposal would not change anything for anyone over 55 and it would give people 55 and under the option to stay on the program or shop for health care coverage. The proposal is in response to the fact that Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will have insufficient funds to maintain benefits in twelve years. Apparently ending Medicare as we know it means that bankruptcy is preferable to fixing the program. My suspicion is that some politicians can’t accept the idea that people might chose to manage their own affairs instead of depending on government.

I want Mr. Ryan to respond to the hecklers “I want to save Medicare!” Politicians who refuse to do anything to fix broken entitlement programs remind me of the meek townspeople in the old Western movies who hide and watch while the hero takes his six shooters out to the street to defend the town. We need fewer politicians who hide and watch while criticizing those who take the risk of proposing changes. The Congressional Budget Office has warned Medicare will go bankrupt without changes. Is proposing changes to make the program better than hiding and watching while it goes bankrupt? I vote yes.

Angry Pigs Organized Against Gerbils: The Farmer Island War

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This posting is about a book that has been a fun family project. I am listed as the author and the four grandchildren are listed as Creative Staff and Illustrators. I am confident that readers will agree that the Creative Staff were indeed creative and that the illustrations range from cute to clever. One reviewer commented it is “An entertaining and well-illustrated book.” For those wondering what ages would be appropriate to read the book, the Creative Staff and Illustrators are 6-12, and we think the creativity of the book makes it appropriate for anyone young at heart.

Why the strange title? Why did pigs need to organize against gerbils, and why did they become angry? The gerbils that had been farm pets did not prepare after the Old Farmer, the remaining caretaker of the isolated farm, died. The pigs recognized that they had to grow food to survive, and the gerbils resorted to declaring war after the pigs refused to surrender their supplies of corn. The pigs become angry when the gerbils resorted to using lethal weapons.

The pigs form a military organization and develop weapons to respond to the gerbil threat. They gain allies from other animals, including secret spies. The pigs also gain pride and respect as they bravely face danger together and learn compassion is more rewarding than anger.

There are several positive messages in the book. The pigs are rewarded for their industry while the gerbils pay a price for their failure to prepare for the future. The pigs use their intelligence to organize and prepare to defend their barn, their families, and their food supplies when the gerbils declare war. However the pigs are not arrogant about their intelligence; they recognize that other animals have strengths and abilities that are also quite admirable. The pigs also learn that facing danger strengthens their mutual respect.

We think you will find this an entertaining and heartwarming story that you will want to share with friends and family. We also think clinking on the link and looking at the intriguing cover will increase your interest.

You also might be interested that we have begun a web site to highlight the book and to post information about pigs and gerbils and to describe upcoming and continuing adventures of the animals on Farmer Island.

Guest Posting about Full Body Burden

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body-burdenThis is the first guest posting on the blog, and I’ve changed some of my personal guidelines to accommodate it, including that it is longer than the usual posting,  The content is in response to a Reader’s Digest article by Karen Iversen, author of “Full Body Burden,” which is a book that contains an accumulation of negative stories about the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant (see the posting dated July 11). I have added a link to Ms Iversen’s book and my book “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats” for those who want two different stories about the plant. With that introduction, the following is the submittal from Ken Calkins, a long time employee of the Rocky Flats Plant.

The July/August 2012 issue of Reader’s Digest carried an article – “My Nuclear Neighborhood” – by Karen Iversen, which supposedly told “what was really going on within those walls.”  It is difficult to understand just what the point of the article was, except that it was supposedly authentic because the author had lived in the area, and had actually worked in the plant – for one year, five years after the plant had ceased operations.

I would like to present another viewpoint, also as a neighbor, a few miles farther away than Ms. Iversen. I was an employee at the plant for 34 years (1955-1989).

With all the things that we have to worry about in our society: unemployment rates exceeding 8% for five years, a burgeoning national debt, periodic mass shootings, wildfires causing hundred millions of dollars in damage, traffic accidents causing thousands of deaths each year, etc., it is hard to understand why anyone would use any of their worry quota on Rocky Flats.  The fact is that, in the fifty plus years of Rocky Flats’ existence, nobody offsite (and not many onsite) was shown to be injured by Rocky Flats operations.  Yes, there are the stories about “my cousin, who lived five miles downwind from Rocky Flats, developed colon cancer, so it must have come from Rocky Flats.”  But the cousin probably had a brother-in-law who was a smoker, or had sprayed his lawn with a weed killer, or had used a mosquito spray on his patio, all of which are as likely to have been causative factors.  And colon cancer occurs thousands of miles away from Rocky Flats every year.  I repeat; no one has shown that they were injured, or that any property damage occurred, from Rocky Flats.

Probably a lot of the concern about Rocky Flats has its roots in what the news media likes to call the “super secret” or “top-secret” facility.  Actually, Rocky Flats followed the same security classifications for the same activities as any other facility within the AEC/DOE system.  These requirements were a matter of law, as mandated by Congress in the Atomic Energy Act of 1956, and were applied in order to prevent countries that didn‘t like us from easily building their own weapons. Violating the law could result in severe punishment, including prison terms.  No Rocky Flats employee was ever charged with a security breach.  So instead of implying that Rocky Flats personnel used the secrecy to cover up activities, anyone with concerns should talk to their Congressman about changing the law.  Actually, it would have been fine with most Rocky Flats employees if the facility had been opened up.  Perhaps the plant should have begun public tours earlier.

Another cause of the public concern about the Flats is the fiction, again perpetuated by the news media that “the tiniest particle of plutonium will kill you” and this combined with the fact that instruments have been developed to detect minute quantities of plutonium.  If the phrase “…within 200 years” were added, it might be closer to accurate.  Even then, some understanding is needed.  Like many other chemicals, small amounts of plutonium can be tolerated by the human body with no significant ill effects, but above a certain amount, biological damage begins to occur.  This threshold amount is called a “full body burden.”  The amount in one’s body is usually expressed as a percentage of the full body burden,  Besides plutonium, body burdens have been established for such chemicals as lead, mercury, arsenic, dioxins, DDT, PCBs, etc. Many ex-workers in the plutonium industry have carried significant body burdens of plutonium, some even exceeding 100%, for decades with no problems. So the idea that a member of the public would be immediately harmed from dust blowing from the plant is just not realistic.

Another fiction perpetuated by the news media is that the 1969 fire in Building 776 was the “costliest industrial fire in history.”  This idea came about because AEC officials chose to submit all fire related costs, including upgrades and improvements (even including the construction of Building 371) in one package.  From the standpoint of requesting money from Congress, this approach was probably best.  But it was like crashing your 1977 VW, worth $2000, into a tree, then telling your insurance agent that you have decided to replace it with a new Ferrari, so you are submitting a claim for $100,000.  He would tell you that the loss in the accident was the value of the VW, plus any death, injuries, and cleanup cost.  On that basis, the Building 776 fire was quite significant, but far from the costliest in history.

The so-called FBI “raid” in 1989, also referenced by Ms. Iversen and frequently referenced in the media, was so absurd that many technical employees were frustrated that corporate Rockwell did not aggressively show the public how silly it was.  An underlying cause was the dispute between two government agencies about who was in charge.  That was stimulated by the EPA’s inability to understand that the incinerator in question was a part of the plutonium recovery process, and not used for the disposal of wastes.  (A waste incinerator was operated elsewhere on the plant site.)  According to rumor, these points were fanned by some disgruntled employee’s report that the incinerator was being operated illegally.

Reportedly, the raid was conducted because the EPA found that the incinerator was being operated”at midnight” as determined by a helicopter flyover, using an infrared detector.  The implication is that anything operated at midnight is done so as to avoid detection by neighbors, and is therefore suspicious.  Now here is an operation being conducted inside a glove box, that inside a processing area with no windows, surrounded by “cold” service and hallways, inside a building with minimum 12″ thick concrete walls, inside a double-fence security area, inside a plant operations area, with the closest off-site neighbor about two miles away.  Why would operations personnel be concerned about whether or not the operation was seen?  And of course it was operating at midnight – also at any other time of the day or night.  The incinerator was a part of the plutonium recovery operation which was itself a continuous operation, starting up on Monday morning and closing down on Friday night.  Because it took about four hours to startup, and also four hours to conduct a safe shutdown, it was not feasible to operate in the daytime only.  So “operating at midnight” has no meaning at all.

Outsiders envision the “incinerator” as a large piece of equipment with a roaring fire inside.  Actually, it was small – about the size of your backyard barbecue – and was slowly fed small amounts of combustible material contaminated with plutonium.  Infrared detectors – and certainly the ones available in 1989 – cannot detect changes of a few degrees in air temperature.  But the incinerator in question produced little heat of combustion, and the exhaust gases were then cooled to nearly room temperature by a water scrubber before going to the building exhaust system.  The net effect on exhaust gas temperature was less than a degree, and was less than other process equipment such as the hydrofluorinator, calciner, and reduction furnaces.  The net effect of this technical jargon is that surveying the exhaust stack with infrared detectors tells nothing at all about operation of the incinerator, day or night, and so there was no basis for a “raid.”

The most ridiculous charge of all is that the incinerator was used to dispose of “unwanted” plutonium.  First of all – there is no such thing.  It is a highly valuable and sought-after material.  From a criticality safety point of view, the incinerator was not designed or permitted to operate with metallic or highly concentrated plutonium feed.  And the incinerator did not dispose of plutonium.  It simply burned off excess material and converted plutonium to plutonium oxide.  If the original feed was unwanted, then the resulting oxide was still unwanted, and had to be handled in some safe way.

Ms. Iverson is reported to have “devoted a decade to researching Rocky Flats”, whatever that means.  If so, I am surprised that she did not report that in the late 1950’s and -60’s, Rocky Flats was consistently recognized as the safest plant operation in Colorado, and among the top in the nation.  During this period, particularly starting after the 1957 fire in Building 71, all plant activities were carefully examined for safety aspects.  The plant was divided into Safety “Teams” and each team developed safety programs and goals.  Upon reaching the goals, team members were given some appropriate reward.  Rewards were also given for overall plant achievements.  At the top, the plant fell just short of reaching 25 million man-hours of work without a lost-time injury – a new national record.  The National Safety Council (NSC), which was the agency monitoring all industrial safety at that time, used measuring sticks involving fatalities, lost-time injuries, and near misses compared to man-hours of work. Using these criteria, Rocky Flats broke numerous national records for safe operation, and was always among the national leaders -not just within the AEC complex, but in all of industry.  A “culture of safety” was established at Rocky Flats before DOE ever thought of the term.  In 1970, the Operational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created within the Department of Labor, effectively taking NSC out of the picture.  OSHA used different measuring sticks and reporting systems, so it was hard to compare the Rocky Flats performance after that time.

One of the hardest things to understand is why the public, encouraged by news media, seems to feel that Rocky Flats employees were either stupid or suicidal.  The reasoning goes like this:  if some hazardous incident should occur, the individuals at greatest risk are those involved in the immediate operation; the next risk, reduced by a factor of ten or more, is to those in the same building; and then individuals on the remainder of the plant site are at risk, reduced by another factor of ten; and finally, the risk to the general public, miles away, is reduced by a another large factor.  So that means that if there is indeed any significant risk to the public from an operation, the risk to the individuals conducting the operation must be a thousand times or so higher.  To accept any significant risk, especially in view of the culture of safety discussed above, a person would have to be either stupid enough to not see the risks, or suicidal so that he ignores the risk.  I knew a lot of very intelligent people at Rocky Flats: PhDs in Chemistry, Nuclear Physics, Metallurgy, etc., MBAs and other college degrees.  I knew a lot of other average Americans; pipe fitters, carpenters, machinists, electricians, secretaries, clerks, guards, and so on.  I knew people I did not always agree with, and some I did not even like, but I never met anyone that I thought was stupid enough to perform a job that he thought was unsafe.  They would not have been hired.  Similarly, I never met anyone that I thought was suicidal.  So I would have thought that if the public understood that Rocky Flats operations were being conducted by competent people who understood their jobs and recognized any hazards but were still willing to proceed, the risk to the public was insignificant.

In a similar vein, I never knew anyone at Rocky Flats who lived like a hermit in a cave in the mountains.  Instead, off the plant site, we were all members of the general public, living, for the most part in typical neighborhoods in the Denver metro area.  We went to the mall, attended church, took our kids to little league games, rooted for the Broncos, just like everyone else.  It is just not reasonable to suggest that we would expose our neighbors, our friends, our families to any significant hazard from our professional activities.

I have touched upon just a few of the points that seem to be at the heart of the general public’s feelings about Rocky Flats.  The greater subject is so extensive and complex that it is impossible to cover in much less than an encyclopedia.  I would summarize my feelings by saying that I feel very strongly that the facility was well managed and well operated, and played a very important role in protecting our national security.  Some incidents occurred which were unfortunate, but at no time in those incidents was there any significant threat to lives or property in the Denver area.  There was never a “radioactive cloud sent over Denver” or “close to a nuclear catastrophe” as quoted by some imaginative writers.  But there were some great technical accomplishments achieved there, in areas assigned by the AEC/DOE.  I am proud of my career there, and do not feel a need to apologize to anyone for it.

Health Care Outsourcing

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I recently posted a blog about indications some of the technology and call center jobs that had been outsourced to India are being pulled back because of quality problems related to communication problems. Don Lee of the Los Angeles Times has an article describing how some healthcare companies have begun to shift clinical services and even decision-making on medical care to primarily India and the Philippines. The practice is not new, but the health care law commonly called “Obamacare” is encouraging more jobs to leave the U.S. The new law requires that 80-85 percent of insurance premiums to be spent on medical care. That requirement, which I understand was put into the law to control insurance company profits, will have the unintended consequence of insurance companies reducing as many jobs as possible with outsourcing.

Jobs that had been previously outsourced involved medical activities such as reading X-rays and other diagnostic tests. Task now being outsourced include “pre-service nursing” to evaluate patient needs and to determine treatment methods. WellPoint, owner of Anthem Blue Cross, has formed Radian Services as a separate business unit to set up the outsourcing. A WellPoint spokesperson said there had been 925 jobs outsourced. The explanation why the outsourcing was being done through a separate business unit is that “…it has the technical expertise and can ensure compliance with laws.” My reaction to that quote is that the real reason is to protect WellPoint from lawsuits that might or are likely to be filed when someone has problems with their medical care.

The article says that companies can save 30 percent of labor costs by outsourcing jobs to the Philippines. However,  having medical treatment decisions made overseas sounds risky considering that companies are returning call center and computer work for quality reasons.  It isn’t surprising that nursing organizations are cautious. Patient privacy is also a concern because people’s medical information is being sent to other countries. I didn’t find the quote that “…nearly all countries have laws for protecting patient privacy…” to be all that reassuring.

One person who had processed medical claims for WellPoint was laid off after a colleague went to the Philippines to do training on how she did her job. I doubt that person would be too impressed that the part of a new law designed to control insurance company profits contributed to the decision to have the work done more cheaply in the Philippines.