Anti-nuke activists turn PIEA board meeting into impromptu talent show

Anti-nuke activists turned out to protest this morning’s meeting of the Planned Industrial Expansion Authority, whose board voted unanimously to approve a development agreement to build a new weapons facility at Highway 150 and Botts Road. The National Nuclear Security Administration Campus will replace Honeywell’s 60-year-old factory on Bannister Road, which manufactures 85 percent of the non-nuclear parts for nuclear weapons under a contract with the U.S. government.

During the public comments period, representatives from several peace organizations, including Physicians for Social Responsibility and PeaceWorks KC, voiced their disapproval. Ron Faust, a minister with the Disciples of Christ, read a poem he’d written. Then, Theodore “Priest” Hughes and Desmond “337” Jones, a pair of spoken-word artists who call themselves The Recipe, performed a piece called “Self-Destruction.” I found a video of the duo performing the same piece at another event; try to imagine this happening in the stodgy context of a board meeting: