Author, Dan Zak, tells us the gripping story of the three peace activists, who broke into the most heavily guarded nuclear facility in the country. And poet Samuel Hazo tells us who “they” are in his new book of poetry entitled “They Rule The World.”
Dan Zak is a feature writer and general assignment reporter based in the Style section of the Washington Post. He has reported from a bathroom of the Vanity Fair Oscar party, a Hurricane Hunter over the Gulf of Mexico, an MRAP in Iraq’s Anbar province, the East Room of the White House, and the gymnasium of the Alexandria jail. He is also the author of Almighty: Courage, Resistance, and Existential Peril in the Nuclear Age, which is the true story about the three ordinary people who were able to penetrate one of the most secure sites in the world, the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which houses nuclear warhead parts and hundreds of tons of highly enriched uranium.
“These three peace activists took it upon themselves to – in the middle of the night in the summer of 2012 – hike up a wooded ridge, cut through four fences, three of which were sensored, enter a ‘lethal force’ zone around the building that may be the largest stockpile of fissile material on the planet… They got to the building and spray-painted Biblical peace messages, and sprinkled human blood, and chipped away at the cornerstone of the facility, and then essentially waited to be arrested.”
Dan Zak, author of Almighty: Courage, Resistance, and Existential Peril in the Nuclear Age
Samuel Hazo is the author of poetry, fiction, essays, various works of translation and four plays. A National Book Award finalist, Governor Robert Casey named him Pennsylvania’s first State Poet in 1993. In his work, he explores themes of mortality and love, passion and art, courage and grace and writes with equal feeling and clarity about political and artistic figures. Dr. Hazo is founder and director of the International Poetry Forum in Pittsburgh, where he is also McAnulty Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Duquesne University. His books include And The Time Is, and This Part of the World.
His latest book of poetry is entitled, They Rule The World.
“I think the problem is that we’ve become a militaristic country. That’s different from a country with a military. In a militaristic country, everything is given primarily a forceful solution at first. And I think it’s becoming indigenous to the country, and I think that’s injurious to us.”
Samuel Hazo, poet, former Marine captain, and author of a collection of poems entitled They Rule The World
Almighty/They Rule the World