www.montereycountyweekly.com august 3-9, 2023 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 17 Aug. 6 and 9 mark 78 years since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Maybe the severity of those atrocities has faded from memory. Or maybe people are confronted with too many existential threats to really focus on it. But not everybody is too tired to think about the reality of nuclear warfare or disinterested in doing something to prevent it from ever happening again. Some of those people, students at high schools in Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima, Wisconsin, Philadelphia and Monterey, presented at a nuclear disarmament conference at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey. “Since it is the only country where nuclear weapons were dropped, you’d think: Oh, teenagers would be interested,” Yuka Miyahara, a third-year student at Soka Senior High School in Tokyo, said in a presentation on Friday, July 28. “From our perspective, hardly anyone is, except in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We would like to present on the results of our research: What type of education is effective?” Miyahara and her classmate Saki Negishi—along with other students in their Critical Issues Forum group—gamified the idea of nuclear abolition. They developed a card game with trivia. (“Which country became the 50th to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons?” one card asks. Answer: Honduras.) But the shortcomings of a card game were immediately apparent. “It is difficult to convey the inhumanity in just a card game, so next is posters showing relationships between health and well-being and nuclear weapons,” Miyahara said. They surveyed students and found that the most effective way to engage them was the card game and posters combined, rather than one or the other. “We feel that it is our responsibility to take action toward the abolition of nuclear weapons,” Negishi said. It’s an impressive level of creativity, innovation and detail-oriented data analysis from anyone, let alone teenagers. But that was the theme of the day—good ideas from smart people. The group at Monterey High School similarly combined creativity with science. A mural-sized mosaic with a dove is nearing completion, meant to inspire and move people. Students are also developing a curriculum that will incorporate nuclear chemistry. “Peace is our number one priority,” said Dante Zanger, a rising senior. Masako Toki runs the Critical Issues Forum at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at MIIS. (Students from Russia used to participate alongside Japanese and American students, but for obvious reasons—that themselves prove the continuing urgency of the need to engage in a global strategy toward disarmament—they were not part of the 2023 gathering.) “It’s important to educate the next generation,” Toki says. I asked the students why they got interested in this topic, given the scale of other existential threats. Some liked hanging out with their peers or a particular teacher. Miyahara’s answer especially struck me, for her combination of optimism and practicality. “It’s very strange to say, but one of my dreams is to live to 120 years old,” she responded. “I considered the risks—disease, cancer—and I thought the nuclear weapons threat is the biggest. It’s very important to remove this from my life.” While she and her teenage classmates are looking forward, there is also an upcoming invitation to look back. The local branch of the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom hosts its annual HiroshimaNagasaki remembrance ceremony from 7-9pm on Saturday, Aug. 5 at Lovers Point in Pacific Grove. The evening kicks off with lantern-making and a taiko drumming performance. Then comes music, poetry and messages about peace, with remarks from physicist Sharat Lin. At 8:15pm, they’ll launch peace lanterns to be floated around by kayak. It’s a lovely ceremony, one that invites reflection and grief for the destruction nuclear weapons have wrought. But more importantly, like the students’ presentations, there is also a call to action. Specifically, 68 nations have ratified the international Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons that went into effect in 2021. The U.S. has yet to do so. Sara Rubin is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@mcweekly.com. Dreams Not Bombs High schoolers commit to tackling the existential threat of nuclear war. By Sara Rubin Ad Hominem…Squid sometimes uses court documents as a sleep aid—half the words are in Latin, and if you don’t have a J.D., it can be pretty dry reading. But sometimes, Squid reads something straight out of a contemporary drama, and Squid perks up. So it is with the rapid-fire, back-and-forth filings in a 2013 federal case against the County of Monterey and Wellpath, its contractor providing medical care in the county jail. The class-action suit was filed by inmates seeking adequate conditions. Per a 2015 settlement, the county and Wellpath are supposed to be doing a bunch of stuff to make things better and safer in there, but plaintiffs’ attorneys claim that isn’t happening. It’s hard to know, because the 30-plus reports that illuminate the details are kept under seal and out of sight from the public, including Squid. The latest chapter in this drama is a legal battle over whether to unseal those reports. Plaintiffs (and the Weekly—see “Free Speech,” p. 6) say yes; the county and Wellpath say no way. Meanwhile, Chief Assistant County Counsel Susan Blitch and plaintiffs’ attorney Van Swearingen are fighting about who said what when. Allegedly, per documents filed by Blitch, Swearingen agreed during a 2020 meeting to keep the reports secret. Then the accusatory emails start flying: “I am very disappointed to see the false statements that you made about me,” Swearingen wrote. Blitch responded: “I stand by my statement. You agreed to keep the reports confidential.” Of course, Squid has no way of knowing who really said what when, but does know this sounds like two kids yelling it out on the playground. Meanwhile, people are incarcerated and they and their families want to know: Are the county and Wellpath living up to their promises? Power Couple…As Squid oozes around Monterey County, Squid regularly observes influential people (and people who wish to be influential) rubbing elbows. So it’s not necessarily surprising to see Rebeca Andrade, the superintendent of Salinas City Elementary School District, and Steve Carrigan, the city manager of Salinas, dining together. What makes it look like something other than business is on the table is the little blue box that Tiffany is famous for, with diamond earrings inside. That’s not on the city/school district agenda…it’s just good, old-fashioned love. Carrigan tells Squid’s colleague that he and Andrade are smitten with each other. They met via Zoom when Carrigan was brand new to Salinas and hosted a meeting with all four Salinas school district superintendents; when she logged in, meeting attendees say, he got a little googly-eyed. It all sounds much more romantic than love in the world of cephalopods, and Squid wishes them the best. the local spin SQUID FRY THE MISSION OF MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY IS TO INSPIRE INDEPENDENT THINKING AND CONSCIOUS ACTION, ETC. “Peace is our number one priority.” Send Squid a tip: squid@mcweekly.com
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