Weeding out the truth

I loved your interview with Al Weed! [“Who’s your daddy?” The Week, February 1] He is so mistaken in most everything he says that it warms the heart of this Republican analyst. Here’s where Weed is so very mistaken:

   He claims to have lost his race to Republican Congressman Virgil Goode because of Goode’s name recognition, that he underestimated Goode as a known quantity. Weed lost because his message was too liberal for the rural 5th District constituency. When Republican challenger George Landrith took on quasi-conservative and popular incumbent Democrat L.F. Payne some years ago, Landrith came within a few percentage points of Payne. So much for known-quantity-name-recognition excuses.

   Weed claims that Republicans’ moral structure claims that wealthy people are, almost by definition, morally upright, and that the poor just aren’t working hard enough. What an old liberal canard that one is! Twenty-two of the 24 poorest states voted for Bush. The not-so-rich rural 5th District voted overwhelmingly for Bush with the exception, of course, of the more affluent Charlottesville/Albemarle area, which voted for Kerry, the richest, preppiest candidate we’ve seen since Kennedy and Roosevelt (liberal Dems all!). As the former 5th District Republican Chairman, I can tell you that the city and county Republican committees of the 5th District are made up of rank and file workers of all collars, but mostly those whose wages are well below the average Virginia wage! They are not wealthy, and they dislike you, Mr. Weed, because you don’t get how hard they work! They resent the people who live near them in housing just like theirs but who don’t work and are on the public dole. It makes them angry, and they blame the liberals (NOT the Democrats per se) for creating the welfare state that allows their neighbors to stay home while they go to work.

   The more Weed explains why he’s a Democrat, the more the voters are going to shy from the Democratic Party. He claims that it’s community values, not family values that Dems espouse. That is way off trend. Any marketing expert will tell you that we are cocooning more (family), looking for employers who offer parenting-time off and ample day care as perqs (family), buying mini-vans and family-sized SUVs more (family) and even the “soccer mom” moniker is now a cliché (family). Even gays and lesbians are clamoring for what the rest of us have: family rights. It doesn’t take a village, Al, it takes a family.

Randolph Byrd

Charlottesville

 

Potent potables

If you have tired of the recipe I sent in for milk punch by now [Mailbag, January 18], there used to be a traditional joint birthday party near Berryville in Northern Virginia over the holidays where they sought to serve French Seventy-Fives, basically cognac mixed with champagne. Finding this was a little pricey, and in order to afford music and other amenities, this was scaled back to a more economical ingredient, highly recommended by med students, known as grain alcohol. Take one part grain alcohol, two parts sauterne, and some soda water and you have it. One of these tasting sessions was overtaken by an ice storm and 80 to 100 happy souls spent the night sprawled about the premises.

 

William W. Stevenson

Charlottesville

Virginia’s other nukes

While people lock horns over whether or not they want two new nuclear plants at North Anna [“30 miles to meltdown?” The Week, February 22], the real concern I have is in Virginia’s other nuclear site: Surry.

   Surry is older. According to its website (www.dom.com/about/station/nuclear/ surry/index.jsp) the two units there began operation in 1972 and 1973. My understanding is that nuclear plants were supposed to operate for about 30 years and then they were supposed to be decommissioned. That website reinforces this understanding by stating that Millstone 1, the Long Island nuclear plant that Dominion Power bought in 2001 and that began operation in 1970, “is currently undergoing decommissioning.” They don’t explain what they are doing to decommission the plant.

   I don’t want to let anybody build new nuclear reactors until I see how the company that wants to do that handles its responsibility to decommission old plants before they fail. That’s the real problem with nuclear power: They have a limited life-span, but they are profitable, right up to the minute that they utterly fail.

   So, when does a profit-seeking company stop making profit from a nuclear plant and start the remarkably expensive process of decommissioning it? Do they wait for a meltdown?

   And how do they protect the public safety once the plant is decommissioned? Do they just cover it in concrete and hope it doesn’t leak? Do they break it up and haul the parts off to…well…to where? The bottom of the ocean? The Moon?

   Don’t talk about anything new at North Anna until you tell me when and how Surry will be decommissioned.

 

Will Martin

Charlottesville

 

Talking ’bout my Generation

I’d like to address a few misconceptions about the North American-Young Generation in Nuclear (NA-YGN) that are evident from recent letters to the editor regarding the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s public hearing in Louisa [“Act now on nukes,” Mailbag, March 1].

   First, NA-YGN, the pro-nuclear grassroots organization that hosted a rally and to which I believe Rob Pates is referring, was founded in 1999, years before any utility had submitted an Early Site Permit (ESP) application. Most of the founders were graduate students at universities far removed from Dominion and Virginia. The Virginia chapter was formed in 2001 and organized or participated in many events like Earth Day, science fairs, engineering career days and science teachers’ workshops well before any of us had ever heard of an ESP.

   Second, to my knowledge, no one at
the pro-nuclear rally was from Chicago. However, the mailing information on NA-YGN materials show a Chicago address because the international organization was incorporated and has a P.O. Box there. Or, Mr. Pates may be referring to a fellow from Exelon that was in attendance. Yes, Exelon is headquartered in Chicago, but the company has recently acquired Public Service Energy Group and the gentleman in question is from Pennsylvania. His travel time was about the same as anti-nuclear leaders from Washington, D.C., and Charlottesville.

   Last, I take offense to the slanderous characterization of NA-YGN. To state that an organization “reeks of corruption and deceit” simply because it supports an action that you do not is the height of rudeness and intolerance.

 

Lisa Shell

Vice President, North American-Young Generation in Nuclear

Richmond

 

Waste not, want not

Jim Adams is rightly concerned with the waste emitted by our energy sources [“Charged up over nukes,” Mailbag, March 1]. However, it seems that his concerns are centered around the waste from nuclear power. Does Jim realize that nuclear power prevents literally thousands of tons of waste from entering the atmosphere?

   I was at the public meeting on February 17 and overheard an anti-nuke say, “I can’t believe anyone would knowingly produce toxic waste!” My question followed: “Oh, so you walked to this meeting?”

   Whenever you drive your car, no matter how efficient it is, you are knowingly producing toxic waste. But, since you don’t have to contain it and dispose of it, your conscience is clean, so to speak. Nuclear power, on the other hand is able to contain the waste and hold it indefinitely. Seventy thousand metric tons of containable, spent fuel sure beats hundreds of millions of metric tons of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide spread around in our air, water and food!

   The truth is: There is waste associated with all forms of power generation. The only question is, do you want to contain it, or spread it around the environment? To oppose nuclear power is to support fossil fuel burning, plain and simple.

   The United States in general, and Virginia in particular, operates a fleet of zero-emission nuclear plants that have not caused any deaths from radiation, respiratory distress or greenhouse gas emissions. Compare that to the burning of fossil fuels, which leads to an estimated 15,000 deaths in the United States each year.

   I too am outraged that any environmentalist would prefer a known deadly power production method such as burning fossil fuels to a safe, clean, reliable and, yes, cost-effective form of energy generation such as nuclear.

 

Michael Stuart

Beaverdam