For immediate release 5/7/08

Celebrating Four Decades of Peace Activism

in Los Alamos

Activist, Artist, Social Reformer Ed Grothus to Speak on “Humanity’s Survival”

 

Contact: Willem Malten, 505-920-1277 (cell), or

Greg Mello, 505-265-1200 (office) or 505-577-8563 (cell)

 

Tomorrow, May 8, 2008, at 10:30 am in the State Capitol Rotunda in Santa Fe, Los Alamos artist, activist, social critic, businessman, and grandfather Ed Grothus will speak and answer questions from the news media.  His theme: “Humanity’s Survival.”

Mr. Grothus, long a colorful public figure in northern New Mexico, is now somewhat weakened by cancer.  Tomorrow’s press conference is a good opportunity to speak with him. 

Mr. Grothus was honored by Governor and Mrs. Richardson last year with the Allan Houser Memorial Award for Excellence in the Arts, one of the state’s highest artistic honors.

 

Many New Mexico newspaper readers are familiar with Ed’s steady stream of highly-polished letters to editors.  Among many other appearances in the news, magazines, and in film he has been the subject of a feature article in Esquire and an HBO documentary.  Just last night Ed was interviewed at length by CBS at the “Black Hole” (a combination equipment salvage yard, nuclear disarmament museum [good pictures at this website] and tourist destination). He is a 2006 recipient of the Nuclear Free Future Award. 

 

The Los Alamos Study Group has organized this press conference as a tribute to Ed and the wisdom he has consistently brought to public discussions regarding issues of war and peace, nuclear policy, and appropriate technology. 

 

“Ed’s message, which may seem simple or even simplistic to careless eyes, is the product of decades of thoughtful reflection, distillation, and discussion,” remarked Study Group director Greg Mello.  “His dissemination strategies are likewise quite sophisticated.  Humanity now stands at the very brink of catastrophes far too great to fully comprehend.  We face a doomsday clock that reads just one minute to midnight.  Emergencies are arriving from several directions, as severe as any humanity has faced.  Most of these problems are interconnected – but so are the remedies we need.  Their guiding principles are as old as humankind.  With two terrible wars underway and another contemplated, with oil prices above $120/barrel and heading higher, with U.S. public and private debt now in the $50 trillion range, it is high time we listened to Ed Grothus.” 

 

            Some of Ed’s favorite aphorisms:

 

• NO ONE IS SECURE UNLESS EVERYONE IS SECURE.
  
  
• ONE BOMB IS TOO MANY.
  
  
• SEMPER FABRICATE NUMQUAM CONSUMITE (ALWAYS BUILD, NEVER DESTROY).
  
  
• DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU.

 

Could the Golden Rule be good foreign policy, after all?  Ed Grothus thinks so, and so do we. 

 

Willem Malten: “What we have to realize about "green" is that it includes a social dimension — from now on we need to critically evaluate all policies against one looming reality: How will this policy impact and affect the poor? The technology we would need to invest in creates jobs and opportunity, lifts people into meaningful work, promotes environmental remediation and a sense of common destiny and justice. That is the social dimension of "green," and it is incompatible with the warring war economy.”

 

 

*****ENDS****