Dead and Buried

THE year, by the old A.D. reckoning, is 12,002. But Lothar has no way of knowing that, since Western civilization—and calendars—had gone the way of the dodo thousands of years before his grandfather was born. Lothar is the leader of a tribe looking to settle down and try their hand at agriculture. He has steered well clear of what used to be Las Vegas, because a fearsome people lives there—amidst the ruins of what all assume was a noble civilization, due to the fact that everyone seemed to eat out of one long communal buffet table. Lothar finds a spot in the shadow of a rust-colored low-slung mountain covered with lizards, scrub brush, and rocky soil. The gods have told him through a vision that this arid and desolate solar anvil is the perfect place for his people to start a new life. They dig many wells, but they all come up dry; finally, they find water. They use it for their crops and drinking water.

And here is the news that scientists, environmentalists, and Nevada senator Harry Reid feared ten millennia earlier: By settling down on a spot no human society found acceptable during the last 10,000 years, Lothar and his people will have increased their exposure to radioactivity by less than the amount you or I receive when flying in an airplane for twelve minutes.

THE year, by the old A.D. reckoning, is 12,002. But Lothar has no way of knowing that, since Western civilization—and calendars—had gone the way of the dodo thousands of years before his grandfather was born. Lothar is the leader of a tribe looking to settle down and try their hand at agriculture. He has steered well clear of what used to be Las Vegas, because a fearsome people lives there—amidst the ruins of what all assume was a noble civilization, due to the fact that everyone seemed to eat out of one long communal buffet table. Lothar finds a spot in the shadow of a rust-colored low-slung mountain covered with lizards, scrub brush, and rocky soil. The gods have told him through a vision that this arid and desolate solar anvil is the perfect place for his people to start a new life. They dig many wells, but they all come up dry; finally, they find water. They use it for their crops and drinking water.

And here is the news that scientists, environmentalists, and Nevada senator Harry Reid feared ten millennia earlier: By settling down on a spot no human society found acceptable during the last 10,000 years, Lothar and his people will have increased their exposure to radioactivity by less than the amount you or I receive when flying in an airplane for twelve minutes.