Los Alamos: Obelisks for a bleak future; anti-weapons activist prepares 'doomsday' monument

Los Alamos: Obelisks for a bleak future

Criticism builds as anti-weapons activist prepares 'doomsday' monument

LOS ALAMOS -- Ed Grothus, an anti-weapons activist for 40 years in the hometown of the atomic bomb, has a new public-art project: a large granite monument with inscriptions to commemorate the first atomic explosion.

Grothus envisions what he calls his "doomsday stones" someday playing a role similar to that of the Rosetta Stone, which helped researchers decipher hieroglyphics long after ancient Egyptian civilization had faded away.

"I'm almost certain we're going to blow ourselves away," the 83-year-old said Thursday. "And when we do that, there will be nobody around. But when the little green men come, they will be able to read everything on earth when they discover my doomsday stones."

A pair of 22-ton, 33-foot-high white granite obelisks, quarried in China, arrived Thursday at Grothus' store, the Black Hole, where he sells items salvaged from Los Alamos National Laboratory.


His plans call for mounting the obelisks on 52-inch black granite cubes inscribed with the story of Los Alamos in 15 languages. The obelisks would be topped with black granite spheres, 3 feet in diameter.

So far, Grothus said, he has spent about $150,000 of his own money on the monument. But he isn't sure where he'll put it.



Anti-weapons activist Ed Grothus holds a model of one of two monuments he plans to have built in Los Alamos as a public-art project to commemorate the first atomic explosion. The two granite obelisks arrived Thursday on the flatbed trailers behind him. Grothus plans to store the obelisks at his Black Hole business in Los Alamos until a place can be secured for them.

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/57424.html

I just met Nora Gallagher, the author of a new novel called "Changing Light" about a scientist who worked in Los Alamos in the 1940's. It's an interesting anti-war book discussing the effects & moral dilemmas for those working on the bomb. Here's the link:
http://www.ereader.com/product/detail/24494?book=Changing_Light:_A_Novel