This chapter once again proved the forced ignorance of all the people around Rocky Flats. The first example is the family and alcoholism. Everybody in the family knows that the father is a heavy drinker but don't talk about it because they don't want to make him angry. In our discussion in class, we talked about how there are these terrible family secrets that many people in the class had growing up. I did not grow up with those so perhaps I don't understand what it is like. In my opinion if these things don't go acknowledged and the problems grow, the family can be hurt even more. This will most definitely become a big conflict in the future of the book. The second example is once again the purposeful ignoring of Rocky Flats. In the Cold War, the American people had more faith in the government than people do today. When even the man who discovered Plutonium is saying there is a dangerous amount in the soil though, the people of Denver should start worrying. The facility has a lot of importance to the defense of America, so the government should evacuate some of the suburbs around the facility to prevent radiation poisoning.
The other part of this chapter that I want to acknowledge is the interesting format of the chapter. Half of the chapter describes her experiences living a normal life, and the other half are people protesting and testing the soil. I wonder how the book will be once the radiation starts effecting people.
This is a really strong point that you have made here Michael. I agree that if the problems in the book go without confrontation, they will only get worse. It is a big lesson that the author teaches us and makes us more aware of. It is also frightening to know that this is a true story and that the government could betray its own people like that, how often does this happen today? What are we not aware of?
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