Two thirds of the way through Oppenheimer, I asked myself “Why did Christopher Nolan make this picture?” Because, except for a few cheesy nits, which I will most assuredly pick later, what we have gotten, about two hours in, is essentially a pseudo documentary, a laboriously accurate, $100 million reconstruction of the events leading up…
Tag: hiroshima
Once more into the breach, atom-wise
The 73rd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima has come and gone, prompting Stevens Institute of Technology professor Alex Wellerstein, self-proclaimed “historian of science, secrecy, and nuclear weapons,” to unleash a “debunking the myths” twitterstorm on the subject, prompting me to respond in near-knee-jerk reaction, since I’ve already debunked the debunkers before—mostly here, but also…
President Obama calls for the end of nuclear weapons while spending $1 trillion on new ones
Speaking in Japan at the Hiroshima memorial, dedicated to the victims to the first use of atomic weaponry in world history, President Obama called for a “moral revolution” that would ultimately lead to the elimination of such weapons. According to a report filed in the New York Times by Gardiner Harris, the President said “We…
Myths in a Mist
For the past year or so, the Washington Post has been running five-minute history lessons in the form of a feature that always begins “Five Myths About …”. A more honest head would be “Five Strawmen About …” A case in point—and one that, naturally, got under my skin—is a recent one by Gregg Herken,…