Colorado Vote on a Proposal to Close Rocky Flats

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 An extensive fire in 1969 at the Rocky Flats Plant attracted significant attention and led to information that a previous fire in 1957 and an outside storage area called the “903 pad” had released plutonium contamination. I discuss in the book “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats” (available on this web site, Amazon, and Createspace) that the reputation of the site never recovered from the negative publicity. However, it is apparently not well remembered that the voters of Colorado had an opportunity to express their opinion about whether the plant should remain in operation. As I wrote at the end of Chapter 11 of the book, there was a ballot issue in 1982 to end operations at the plant. The exact wording was, “Shall the constitution of the State of Colorado be amended in order to bring about cessation of nuclear weapons component production in Colorado…” The vote was defeated 584,356 to 326,550. The source of this information is an article published in the Rocky Mountain News November 4, 1982.

At least one person who followed the history of Rocky Flats closely mentioned they weren’t familiar with the vote on the amendment, and I decided I needed to look for additional verification. I was able to locate a reference on ballotpedia.org, which listed all the ballots issues for 1982. Proposition 6 was the measure that would have made it illegal to produce components for nuclear weapons at Rocky Flats. It did not specify which components were included, so production of stainless and other non-nuclear components would have been just as illegal as those made from plutonium.

The Rocky Mountain News article opens with mention that Denver and Pitkin country voters approved a “freeze on nuclear weapons,” but that was rejected in Mesa County. That vote did not have had any impact on Rocky Flats. Components for nuclear weapons manufactured there were shipped to other locations for assembly of the weapons. The proposal to end manufacturing at Rocky Flats was rejected in a statewide vote. A supporter of the initiative said it was believed confusion between the two proposals was part of the reason for the defeat. The coordinator of the Denver Freeze Campaign speculated that “…jobs, particularly with unemployment at its highest point since the Great Depression, might have influenced the verdict about Rocky Flats, which employees 4,700 in its production of triggers for the United States arsenal.” Another proponent suggested that the proposal might have lost votes because it “…may have suggested to voters a unilateral decision by the United States to cease nuclear production.”

Regardless of why the proposal was defeated, I suggested in my book that the proposal might have had a different fate if the vote had been held in the late 1980s. Negative stories about Rocky Flats in 1988 won the site the dubious honor of being the top news story for that year. Of course the raid in 1989 might also have swung a few (or many) votes.

Jump the Shark

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Wikipedia identifies an episode in the Happy Days television show where a water skiing Fonzie demonstrates his bravery by jumping over a confined shark. The episode created the term “jump the shark” to characterize the moment in the evolution of a television show when the core premises is abandoned to absurdity and begins to decline, although Happy Days continued for seven more seasons. Presidential candidate Obama appeared at a meeting of Democratic governors in Chicago in 2008 with a large seal instead of the name plates used by the other speakers. A New York Times editorial said, “…Mr. Obama showed signs of jumping the shark… when he appeared at a podium affixed with his own…faux-presidential seal.”

Up to Snuff

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Worldwidewords.org writes that the expression was originally used to describe someone sharp and not easily fooled. Snuff was expensive, and was therefore used by affluent men who would be able to distinguish the quality.  An early form of the phrase, “up to snuff and a pinch above it,” confirms it related to the use of tobacco.  The meaning shifted over time to mean someone who is efficient and capable or something that meets standards of required quality.

FDR’s Personality

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This is the fourth and perhaps final posting of the review of Joseph E. Persico’s excellent book, “Roosevelt’s Secret War, FDR and World War II Espionage.” The author gives significant insights into FDR’s personality, especially his fascination with learning the secrets of others. One person observed, “Few leaders were better adapted temperamentally to espionage than Franklin Roosevelt.” In keeping with that observation, FDR authorized wire taps of people judged to be suspicious despite a Supreme Court ruling that banned wire taps and the advice of his Attorney General. He justified that authorization on the grounds of national security, but he took the liberty to go further.  He had J. Edgar Hoover investigate former President Herbert Hoover and opponent Wendell Wilkie. He also had Vice President Henry Wallace under surveillance. I’ve read in other accounts that he expanded far beyond political opponents and associates. It was said that he reveled in learning about skeletons in people’s closets gathered by Hoover. Perhaps he did some of this as a reflective action to an event early in his adulthood when he and a friend began consorting with two beautiful women. He was warned by a friend of his family that the two women were the “best known pair of international blackmailers in Europe,” and he and his friend were able to escape. The lesson in the value of suspicion may have stayed with him.

Roosevelt had a recording system installed inside a drawer of his desk in August 1940.  One recorded conversation was about Wendell Wilkie. FDR was recorded talking about Wilkie’s mistress, and how Wilkie’s wife had in effect, “…been hired to return to Wendell to smile and make his campaign with him.”  The recorder was removed almost immediately after FDR won reelection. 

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Global Warming Reporting

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This will be the third posting about the issue of global warming. The first point I will make is that the advocates for the idea that man’s activities are causing damage to the climate are moving to change “global warming” to “climate change.” They were wrong in the 1970s when they warned that a new ice age was a certainty, and they might be wrong that the temperatures are rising.  One of them was quoted as saying the fact that temperatures haven’t continued to rise the last few years with increasing levels of carbon dioxide as predicted by the computer models was “a travesty.”  (How dare nature to not comply with the computer models!) However, if they can complete the transition of the mantra to be “climate change,” they are assured of being right. The climate has always changed, and it would be quite safe to predict it will continue to change.

A majority of American people have been convinced that a climactic disaster is looming based on what they have heard about the certainty of coast lines being flooded, increasingly ferocious hurricane seasons, and famines.  I will admit that the level of the oceans has increased.  There was once a land bridge between Russia and the United States. In fact sea levels have increased by about 7 inches in the past 100 years. Of course that isn’t sufficiently dramatic to make a point in a movie, so you should show a depiction of most of Florida and other coastal areas being swallowed by water. The predictions of horrific hurricane seasons have not materialized, and some years have been exceptionally mild. That apparently wasn’t as news worthy as the warnings. And we should stop converting corn into ethanol if we are actually worried about food shortages.

Would you predict that there has been a continuation of the shrinkage of the Arctic sea ice based on recent reports?  Check out the National Snow and Ice Data Center and look at the charts.  The amount of ice coverage is well below the 1979 to 2000 average, but the line is bouncing along near the 2006-2007 level.  I previously printed their charts for 2005 to 2009.  Ice coverage decreased from 2005 to 2007, but there was a significant increase from 2007 to 2008 and 2009. Reading through the explanations of their data you will find that “this month had the sixth-largest snow cover extent since the record started in 1966.”  There is another statement that “Reduced sea ice extent and extensive snow cover are not contradictory…”  I admit I didn’t understand their explanation.

I want to close this by referring to an entertaining lecture given by Michael Crichton titled “Aliens Cause Global Warming.” I recommend reading the entire lecture, but I will mention a couple of points.  He dismisses the idea that there is “consensus.”  His discussion of that is brilliant. Later in the paper he discusses the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  The draft of their 1995 report concluded, “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate changes to anthropogenic causes.”  That statement was removed and replaced in the final report with “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on climate.” Reread both statements and contemplate them.  The first draft said their studies hadn’t connected man’s activities to global warming.  The final report “suggests” a “discernible human influence…”

I want to emphasize that I am strongly in favor of showing good stewardship to the planet.  I favor conservation of resources and research into how to make us more energy efficient and less dependent on countries that don’t like us very much for most of the oil we burn.  I’ll stop doing blogs criticizing how the story is being reported when I believe the reporting is being done honestly.

What’s Up?

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Wikianswers.com says the most common thought about the origin of this expression is the cartoon character Bugs Bunny who frequently inquired “What’s up, Doc?” A reference to ‘whatsup’ was in a short story The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes and Sixes and Sevens published in 1911 by the famous O’Henry. The character Shamrock Jolnes says, “Good morning, Whatsup.”  Jack London’s The Sea Wolf written in 1904 has a character inquiring of Wolf Larson, “What’s up?” Bugs Bunny appeared in 1940, and probably is responsible for making the phrase popular.