Déjà vu

By Christine Anne Piesyk | July 2, 2006 |

On a cool September morning in 1966, I stood outside my Catholic high school, waiting for my best friend to hop off the bus. She did, crying.

“Jim died.”

My eyes welled up, and I marked the day in my mind as the one on which I lost my first friend to Vietnam. «Read the rest of this article»

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Proliferation By Any Other Name…

By Christine Anne Piesyk | July 2, 2006 |

Two brow-raising stories came across the web Friday, both dealing with nukes. You know, those neat little weapons that could destroy the earth and all of us who live on it.

The first story dealt with plans to “revamp the entire (nuclear) arsenal” with something called the Reliable Replacement Warhead (Scott Lindlaw, AP, 6/30/06). The Reliable Replacement Warhead is a purported to be a new, better warhead intended to replace existing deteriorating warheads. This new and improved weapon is deemed reliable, safe and secure and all those good words, but of course, has not been tested since we theoretically don’t test nukes anymore.

Two companies, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories, in New Mexico and San Francisco, CA respectively, are competing to build the best replacement bomb; the contest ends in November when the White House is expected to make a decision. «Read the rest of this article»

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