I don't get what all the hoopla is about. Michelle Obama is an intelligent, attractive woman who happens to be a mother and the wife of the President. What people of other persuasions do not understand is that she DOES stand for something for us African-American women. For the first time, there is a SISTA who looks like a SISTA in the White House, and someone with an agenda other than following her husband around and waving. When we older women see her, we see what our daughters and our granddaughters can aspire to. We have so many times been relegated to the single mom, welfare recipient, GED-educated living in the ghetto, angry Black woman. Michelle Obama lets everyone whose only frame of reference is the media know that We are beautiful....We are intelligent....We can "fry the bacon AND bring it home".
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A First Among First Ladies
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What to Do With Nuclear Waste?
"Sound Politics," as your Dec. 1 article "Obama's Nuclear Reservations" described it, is actually what created the $9 billion hole in the side of Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Back in 1987, politically powerful members of Congress managed to steer the nuclear-waste repository away from their states and directly into Nevada. Science had nothing to do with the selection, but science and common sense will prevail. The reasons for ending the taxpayer boondoggle called Yucca Mountain are plentiful: years of flawed science; unrealistic assumptions about costs conservatively predicted to hit $100 billion; and the egregious error of burying waste that could potentially, with American innovation, be less dangerous and even turned into energy. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has stated that spent nuclear fuel can be stored safely on site for at least 100 years in dry cask storage. That leaves plenty of time to fund and develop new technologies to safely manage nuclear waste. Our country is not so flush with endless funds or energy that it would make any sense to permanently bury almost $100 billion and a potential energy source. Let's leave the waste where it is for now and invest a fraction of that money in studying safe and common-sense alternatives to a national repository. We're confident the payoff will be worthwhile for all Americans.
Sen. John Ensign(r-nev.)Sen. Harry Reid(d-nev.)
Washington, D.C.
As a nuclear engineer, I am compelled to point out a serious omission. You forgot to mention reprocessing, which is precisely why nuclear power works well in France. They have no waste problem because more than 90 percent of nuclear-reactor fuel is recyclable, likely making it the most "green" of all energy sources. The French have been recycling their fuel through reprocessing for decades; even Japan has a new plant, and similar operations can be found worldwide. The only country not reprocessing its nuclear fuel, and hence creating more nuclear waste, is the United States, which is quite amazing.
Glenn E. Sjoden, Associate Professor
University of Florida
Gainesville, Fla.
© 2008
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