Girder

I can't say that I wasn't overly impressed by the National Atomic Testing Museum. I expected science and inquiry, and perhaps a certain level of contrition for the damage done, but instead found militarism and warmongering.

Too harsh? Perhaps: but what legitimate purpose does a relic from the World Trade Center have in an institution devoted to advancing to the public knowledge of nuclear testing and its role in Nevada?

I also think that this steel I-beam, and all that it's intended to represent, deserves more than being c-clamped to a simple steel tether and marked by a piece of paper that has been badly glued to foam core.

Lunar Landing

Grammar is an interesting thing.

The National Atomic Testing Museum has a timeline tracing atomic developments alongside events in popular culture.

The present-tense verb "Lands" is singular; "Land" is plural. So to say that "Apollo 11 lands on the moon", where Apollo 11 is a singular subject, is correct. To say that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong land on the moon is also correct, as the two astronauts are the plural subject.

Michael Collins did not land on the moon.

Is this a profound grammatical error or a basic factual error from a museum of science and technology that's associated with the Smithsonian Institution? If it's the former then the sentence would require a complete re-write to become factually correct. If it's the latter then I should have filled out a comment card after all.

You and Atomic Warfare

The film loop shown in the Ground Zero Theatre included people explicitly stating that America's nuclear arsenal is why it won the Cold War. Personally I think that confuses cause and effect.

The peace movement was downplayed, ignored, or trivialized. The attitude in the film loop was that these soldiers, and these weapons, nobly protected the people who were against them, elevating the stature of the military and treating those who did not support them as hypocrites.

Nuclear Weapons Protect Democracy.

Left unasked, let alone answered, is how nations such as Denmark, Canada, Iceland, Greece, Portugal, Finland, Australia, Spain, New Zealand, Brazil, or any other state that chose not to pursue nuclear armament could continue to exist.

(Correct answer, should it have been required: America!)

Also unexplored was the idea of why, if nuclear weapons protect democracy, America is against middle eastern dictatorships acquiring them.

The Horrors of War I

Nutshell history lessons that call the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki "industrial targets".

The clever idea of intense radiation from an unshielded reactor wreaking havoc in the wake of a cruise missile on its way to deliver a dozen warheads.

Residents of St. George, Utah, being told to stay indoors for a few hours when fallout clouds drifted their way.

The National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas is a horrifying place. The underlying theme seemed to be how nifty atomic weapons are, as it serves as a monument to American exceptionalism and technology, with minimal critical examination of the process and its legacy.

The Horrors of War II

I find it inconceivable that a museum devoted to the legacy of nuclear weapons testing in Nevada wouldn't be a monument to peace. But then again, I'm Canadian, and fundamentally don't understand American culture.