Comments on: Big Sofa

Big Sofa

sluglicker — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 14:47:07 -0800

"Idyllopus is J. M. Kearns...a kind of catch-all folder on the side of the desk." A few sub-folders: Art | Cartoons | Hanford

By: mdonley

mdonley — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 18:25:37 -0800

I'm not sure why no one's commented here yet, but the Hanford stories are pretty wild - radiation studies done on school kids, social class divisions in a town composed almost entirely of transplanted scientists and their families, secrecy surrounding people's real jobs at the site. Here's a satellite map of the area to illustrate how large the Hanford site - bisected by Highway 240 - is compared to the town of Richland to the south, which housed its workers; if you zoom into the site, you'll see areas named after women with names common in the 1950s...anyone know the story there?

By: caddis

caddis — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 20:22:46 -0800

The eerie thing I remember about flying into Richland was a large very green field in the middle of absolute brown desert. Apparently something was spilled or dumped, with dumped being more likely, there which creates a danger of radioactive dust blowing about. The solution, plant grass and irrigate to keep down the dust. The color is a bit washed out and the resolution low so I couldn't find it on the Google map. Perhaps they even cleaned it up. You have got to love a place that names it local high school team the Bombers and whose symbol is a mushroom cloud. Don't even think about making jokes in town about radiation, these guys want the high level nuclear waste dump in their town. I heard one guy say on TV that they could put it in his actual backyard - that's jobs. It's pretty cool not having to turn on a light when you get up in the middle of the night to pee, I just hold my hands out and let their gentle glow light my way.