NH #794: Nuclear Humor?!? Foreign Policy Expert Bill Hartung Relieves Ugly Nuke Facts w/Stand-Up Comedy + Reactor Radiation Mutations

This Week’s Featured Interview:

William D. (Bill) Hartung

• William D. Hartung is a Foreign Policy Advisor with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and his work focuses on the arms industry and US military budget. He was previously the director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy and the co-director of the Center’s Sustainable Defense Task Force. Bill is the co-author, with Ben Freeman, of the recently released book: The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home.
  
  But as Bill Hartung, he performs stand-up comedy on foreign affairs and nuclear issues at comedy clubs and for special events.
  
  Contradiction in terms? We think not…

Bill Hartung at West Side Comedy Club in New York, February, 2025

Tina Cordova at San Onofre Symposium

• One of the pleasures of attending major events is that I run into friends from the movement to abolish nukes who I otherwise don’t get to see unless it’s on Zoom. At the recent Samuel Lawrence Foundation San Onofre Symposium, one speaker was Tina Cordova. She is a Downwinder from the Trinity test and the Nevada Test Site radiation, and founded the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. She spoke about her personal experiences being a Downwinder, how the radiation exposure harmed her and decimated her family, and her then-upcoming presentation at the United Nations.

Numnutz of the Week (for Outstanding Nuclear Boneheadedness)

• A different kind of Numnutz this week, on mutations in proximity to the nuclear reactor disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima. Kids, worms, and pigs — can the rest of us be far behind?