L'Shana Tovah: Happy New Year

Apples and Honey

A New Year

The Jewish NewYear, Rosh Hashanah, starts this evening.

Rosh Hashanah is celebrated with religious services and sweet foods.  We dip apples in honey, and wish each other a good and sweet year.

This past year has been hard on many of us.  Last Rosh Hashanah, around 600 people still worked at Vermont Yankee, and the plant was making power.  This Rosh Hashanah, the plant is closed, it employs about 300 people, and we buy power from out of state.

In my personal life, I lost my Aunt Blanche this year.   She was my mother's sister, a pioneering lawyer, and de facto grandma to my children.

Blanche had a full life, passing away at 93.  I saw her a few months before she died, which was good for both of us.  I quote her extensively in this 2010 blog post: Energy Use and Feminism in My Family.

Please.  Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for so many things.  Yet I have to acknowledge that this past year had major sorrows.

Another thing that we often say on Rosh Hashanah, acknowledging the pain:

May this year end with its curses, and the new year begin with its blessings.

To everyone who reads this:

Have a good and a sweet year.

 L'Shanah Tovah.

The Decommissioning Panel and the Three Conspiracies

Not a Conspiracy

Okay, I have to start by saying there are no real conspiracies about the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel.  But still...

Sometimes, you know, you just gotta laugh.

The First Conspiracy: Two Meetings Scheduled!

The first meeting of the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (VNDCAP) will be held at Brattleboro High School on Thursday, September 25, from 6 to 9 p.m.  One panel member is New Hampshire State Senator Molly Kelly, who represents the New Hampshire towns closest to the plant.

At the very same time as the VNDCAP meeting, a different meeting was planned in New Hampshire, on the same subject. As described in the Reformer, the New Hampshire meeting would involve New Hampshire officials and representatives from New Hampshire Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

And here comes the first conspiracy theory. Green Mountain Daily is a website that is steadily against Vermont Yankee. One of their writers, Sue Prent, describes herself as "associated with Fairewinds Energy Education." (Fairewinds is Maggie and Arnie Gundersen's company.)  In her article There's a meetin' tonight: there's a meetin' tonight, Prent writes about the overlap in meetings. She notes that the conflicting meetings "would be a shrewd way to ensure that the well-organized effort that opposed Vermont Yankee's continued operation would not have a full-strength presence in public discussions of decommissioning issues."

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have our first conspiracy. Well, at least we have our first conspiracy theory.

Second Conspiracy: Only One Meeting

Howard Shaffer had hoped to be the New Hampshire representative to VNDCAP.  When Senator Molly Kelly was appointed to that position, he offered to help her. Shaffer realized, looking at the two meetings, that Senator Kelly could not be in two places at the same time.  He alerted people in New Hampshire about the situation. Perhaps due to his efforts, the New Hampshire meeting was postponed.

Shaffer then commented on the Green Mountain Daily post, noting that people might look for human error before looking for conspiracies.  Ms. Prent quickly wrote two snarky replies. Shaffer answered her as follows: Now that the Hinsdale meeting has been cancelled, where is the conspiracy?  I know!  Get the antis all together in one place so they can be identified! (There's always a conspiracy somewhere!!)

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have our second conspiracy theory.  This one is tongue-in-cheek, however.

Third Conspiracy: Exclusion by Religion?

Shaffer is planning to go to the meeting in Brattleboro.  I will not go.  The meeting is on Rosh Hashanah, one of the Jewish High Holidays.  This is clearly a third conspiracy, to exclude people like me!

The above sentence is a joke. I am sure the meeting date is not a conspiracy.  It is clear from everything written above that these meeting planners are a gang that can't shoot straight.  They probably would not have noticed if they had scheduled the meeting on Easter.

A Good and Sweet New Year

I wish all my readers and all my friends--- a good and sweet New Year.

Rosh Hashanah foods and Shofar

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End Note: Background about the Advisory Panel Meeting

The first meeting of the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (VNDCAP) will be held at Brattleboro High School on Thursday, September 25, from 6 to 9 p.m. There are nineteen members of the panel, including many plant opponents. Entergy and the plant union (IBEW) also have members on the panel.  One panel member is New Hampshire State Senator Molly Kelly, who represents the New Hampshire towns closest to the plant. You can read the list of panel members in the Brattleboro Reformer article Yankee Decomm Panel to Meet Sept 25, and you can read my opinion of the panel at my post about the panel appointments: Good, Bad and Ugly.  Howard Shaffer wrote about the panel at ANS Nuclear Cafe: The Latest Sop to Nuclear Opponents.

A good and sweet year

Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

May we all have a good and sweet year.

Shana Tova (A good year)



This is the time of repentance and rethinking.

I found this short video very moving.

Who is "other"after all?  We are all "other" to somebody.