Pursuant to the Agreement

Pursuant to the Agreement

Andrew Dana Hudson

Pursuant to the Agreement

Andrew Dana Hudson

Pursuant to the Agreement: Documenting Scenes of Bureaucratic Resilience in an Age of Disunion

An exhibition at the Museum of the American Fracture, Chicago, D.C.

Generously supported by the Center for a Twenty-Second Century Consensus

Curated by Yasmin Zepeda, 2105

Exhibit 1

On loan from the archives of the Palo Verde-Signal Mountain Interim Storage Facility

Excerpt from the 2029 Greater Palo Verde-Signal Mountain Stakeholder Community Consent Agreement, Executive Summary

What Happens Now?

With the signing of this compact, work can at last begin on the Federal Interim Storage Facility. This facility will be sited at the agreed-upon location within the Signal Mountain Wilderness, previously administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). There it will be supported by the unique security and materials-handling expertise of the Palo Verde Generating Station. Construction of the 250,000 square-foot building is estimated to take three years, owing to the stringent safety and environmental precautions agreed upon by the stakeholder community and the ISDO.

[Curator’s Note: Independent Storage and Disposal Organization, a rare example of unaffiliated paragovernance in the anterixam (pre-Fracture) USA. Created to distance the consent process from the Department of Energy, trust in which, like many institutions in the years leading up to the Fracture, had deeply eroded.]

The facility itself will be surrounded by a limited-access security zone with a two-mile radius. Around this has been designated a 42,000 acre nature-culture preserve, administered jointly by the National Park Service, the Gila River Indian Community, the Ak-Chin Indian Community, and the Tohono O’odham Nation.

Upon completion and certification by fourth-party inspectors, the facility will begin receiving shipments of Nuclear Regulatory Commission–approved dry storage casks via heavy-haul truck. BLM and Mesquite Solar access roads will be expanded during construction to handle these greater loads. Connections to the Union Pacific and BNSF rail networks are slated to be completed in 2037, at which time rail freight will become the primary mode of transport for incoming dry casks.

[CN: Union Pacific and BNSF shared a duopoly on transcontinental rail freight prior to the Fracture. Though the companies themselves did not survive the age of militarized borders, these rail connections proved crucial to the facility’s continued service, thanks to backchannel “hot potato diplomacy.”]

Delivery of casks to the facility is expected to continue for at least a decade as the nation’s spent nuclear fuel is consolidated, freeing communities around the country from the financial and infrastructural burdens of secure storage and the hazard of environmental contamination. After that, casks will be held in interim storage until they can be relocated to a permanent depository. Pursuant to this agreement, such relocation must take place before the expiration of consent on January 1, 2060.

Until such a time, this facility and the surrounding preserve shall stand as a testament to the capacity of Americans to put aside differences, work towards a greater common good, and advance the shared destiny of future generations.

[CN: LOL]

Exhibit 2

On loan from the Wills Papers Collection, Seattle-Vancouver

Letter dated April 12, 2035

From: Karson Song-Gutierrez, day-chair of the Standing Committee on State Relations, Autonomous Technopublic of California

To: Frank Wills, Director of ISDO

Dear Director Wills,

Greetings and solidarity from the newly independent nation of California! In such times of great novelty and upheaval, in which decades are happening not just by the week but by the hour and minute, clarity and solidity are the most precious commodities. As you are no doubt aware, the interface between our new governance platform and the USA is still tenuous, patchy, and contested—a lot of political bug tickets in the queue! Ironically, physical borders are easier and safer for us to traverse at the moment than digital ones. Thus I write to you with pen and paper, dispatched by courier drone across the Sonoran Desert. I hope it reaches you safely and without causing much alarm to family/neighbors/pets.

Now that things are finally quieting down (ha!) after the Calexit referendum and the passing of power to the Revolutionary Public, a committee has been formed to tally up all the various unspoken agreements and habits of interstate commerce and free movement that we now must formalize on the chain. One of the most pressing matters our committee has unearthed is the valiant work of your organization.

[CN: Though only weeks old at the time this letter was written, the Standing Committee on State Relations would prove to be one of the most influential political organs in the Autonomous Technopublic of California. More famously, Song-Gutierrez and their colleagues resecured Colorado River water rights and renegotiated chip tariffs with Arizonan-Taiwanese suppliers.]

Suffice to say, California has a large number of spent fuel rods being stored essentially in-situ at the San Onofre, Diablo Canyon, Rancho Seco, and Humboldt Bay sites. Only one of these, Diablo Canyon, is still an active generating station, producing actual value for the people of California. The others are legacy waste sites that date back decades. (I know you know all this, but having spent the last few days giving myself a crash course in nuclear waste management, I feel compelled to recite the facts.)

To be clear, we consider this situation to be the result of multigenerational governance failures by the D.C. regime—exactly the kind of inability to solve real problems that drove many of us Californians to demand a more modern way of doing politics. Once diplomatic relations between our countries are normalized, we plan to bring claims to the appropriate international courts. California should not have to bear the burden of cleaning up cans that have been kicked down the road in Washington and Carson City. (That said, the Revolutionary Public stands in solidarity with the Western Shoshone Nation and all Indigenous peoples who have struggled for health, dignity, and recognition of sacred lands in the face of colonizer neglect and oppression.)

Future litigation aside, however, we appreciate the utility of the Palo Verde-Signal Mountain Interim Storage Facility in beginning to partially resolve this issue. Unfortunately our committee has discovered that waste shipments to PVSM from the aforementioned Californian sites have stalled. This is due partly to the murky situation at the border, partly to the withdrawal or disbandment of D.C. military forces here (who of course have provided security for past shipments), and partly due to the general confusion during the past months of radical change—some ISDO employees here reported having their paychecks frozen and their emails locked, while others are apparently allowed to carry on as normal.

Though this pause is understandable, legally we believe there is every reason for the existing agreement between ISDO and the former state government of California to hold. Pursuant to that agreement, we would like to work with you to resume the process of moving Californian spent fuel to the PVSM facility.

We can provide money to make this happen. I’m sure ISDO, like many publicly funded agencies in the US, is being asked to reconsider its budget now that your government will have to get by without 15% of its accustomed tax base. We can fill this gap, though we hope to recoup much of that money later in international court. And of course, the better we can amicably deal with this problem now, the smaller our damages will need to be at that later date.

We can also offer safe passage through our territory for spent fuel shipments from the Trojan or Hanford sites in your state of Washington (assuming WA’s upcoming referendum fails).

[CN: Later that year, Washington state voted 53-45 to join the ATC, but the referendum was voided by the state’s supreme court and remained in legal purgatory for the rest of the Fracture.]

You might ask why I am coming to you, as opposed to taking this to regime leaders in Washington. Well, if I’ve learned anything living through the last six months, it’s that there’s great power in cutting through the hierarchy and taking initiative to do what everyone needs done. You find the people who actually make things happen, and work with them directly until the problem is solved. And if they say no, you go down the traditional chain of command instead of up.

None of us wants to deal with the headache that would ensue if, hypothetically, a truck showed up at the Arizona border unannounced with a bed full of radioactive spent fuel casks, asking to be let through. I’m not above explaining NWM policy to a few confused national guards. But with your help, it doesn’t have to go down that way.

In the end it comes down to trust. Can we trust each other as North Americans who share a common past, and who have a shared mess to clean up? If so, I think our respective countries have the potential to live peacefully and prosperously as neighbors for many generations to come.

Solidarity,
Karson Song-Gutierrez

Exhibit 3

Direct messages between Frank Wills and his wife Alice Blake-Wills, August 22, 2035, disclosed to the public during Arizona v. Wills 1334 U.S. 98 (2037)

FW: ugh they actually did it

AB: the californians?

FW: there’s a convoy blocking I-10 traffic at the blythe checkpoint right now

AB: jesus

AB: why do they think this is your call?

FW: i don’t know

FW: who’s [sic] call is anything these days?

AB: lmao true

AB: so what happens now?

FW: well

FW: congress won’t approve working with the californians on this, or possibly anything

FW: not while texas is breathing down their neck, anyway

AB: do you think those maniacs would really do it?

FW: run an exit referendum? why not?

FW: whole country is at least considering following cali’s lead, and why shouldn’t they?

FW: probably just depends on the branding at this point

AB: “Texit” does have a nice ring to it

AB: but no, i mean madwell’s whole “form a posse to round them up” speech

FW: you mean, would texas secede from what’s left of the USA specifically so they could go to war with california all on their own? no clue

FW: i *think* the governor’s threats are just posturing. red meat for the crowd and all that

FW: but that red meat is *for* someone, right? someone over there really likes the idea of working out generations of culture war grievances with a tactical nuclear strike on San Luis Obispo, or wherever they’re fixated on this week

AB: or a shootout somewhere in the Arizona desert

FW: or that

AB: speaking of, Jaz misses you, and so do i. are you sure you can’t come stay with us? i don’t like you being down there in the crosshairs and the heat

FW: wish i could

FW: god, these summers

FW: but this convoy thing is exactly why i have to stay on site for now

AB: so what are you going to do about it?

FW: well, don’t get mad, but i’m in a car right now

AB: ?????

FW: i’m going to blythe to see if I can talk CBP guys into letting the convoy through

[CN: Customs and Border Patrol, a U.S. agency thrown into disarray during the Fracture, as various state and federal officials claimed authority over borders that were moving, collapsing, militarizing, or being disputed or disregarded.]

AB: WHY

AB: Frank how is that a good idea??

FW: we can’t just stay in limbo forever. at some point we have to get on with the business ISDO was founded to carry out. a project like this has to be able to push through a little turmoil. after all, this stuff will be dangerous for thousands of years

FW: and that Karson person is right that they shouldn’t be stuck with it

AB: you said international norms say that each country has to deal with its own waste

FW: yeah moving this stuff across borders is too spooky

FW: WHICH I TOLD THEM

AB: exactly. well, if california really is going to be its own nation now, let them abide by the norms like everyone else

FW: but when californians consented to the construction of their nuclear plants (and many people very much did not consent) they assumed the feds would take care of the waste, which didn’t happen for decades. is it fair to tell them, sorry, your problem now? they didn’t consent to hold onto a bunch of spent fuel indefinitely

AB: but how long are the terms of consent supposed to last?

FW: when it comes to nuclear storage? pretty long! or else you need to include an expiration date, like we did with PVSM

AB: but under what circumstances? surely *leaving the union* voids all these sorts of agreements. no one *made* them secede, for goodness sakes!

FW: what do you want me to tell them? turn around and take it back? to whatever open-air dumping ground these things have been sitting in for 40+ years? where it will eventually get into the environment?

AB: tell them to take it up with someone else

AB: Frank?

FW: look, i’m going. i’m already on my way. actually, the car is nearly there

FW: at some point, someone, somewhere is going to have to say yes to this stuff. it might as well be me

AB: what are you going to tell CBP?

FW: i’ll give em the ol’ “pursuant to the agreement” razzle dazzle. wow them with legalese. it’ll be fine

AB: what if you get fired?

FW: then i’ll get to move back to seattle and catch up on quality time with you and Jaz. we can get a dog like she wants. i’ll walk the dog every day in the rain and never think about radioactive desert ever again

AB: what about if they try to arrest you?

FW: then i can just flee over the border and claim political asylum in california

FW: i mean, it is right there, after all

AB: don’t even joke about that

FW: i could join some technopublic standing committee and start all over trying to site a new facility

AB: no way

FW: you could come too! i bet you’d clean up in san jose. they need architects there too. they are probably itching to build some grand monuments to their revolution

[CN: In an odd turn of events, Alice Blake-Wills did indeed end up submitting a design for the Tower of Techno-Democracy arcology, which the ATC planned to build in Death Valley as a sustainable demonstration community. Her proposal, titled “Ten-Thousand-Year Head Start,” made it to the final selection phase, but ultimately came in sixth place in the final vote. The arcology project would be scrapped two years later amid budget concerns brought on by the hyperdeflation crisis of 2040.]

FW: Jaz could go to Berkeley like me, and we’d only have to pay in-state tuition—or maybe nothing! who knows how far they’ll make it down their whole decommodification pipeline by then.

AB: stop trying to convince me how great it would be if you had to go on the run from the government like some enemy of the state

AB: that’s not making me feel better about this

FW: sorry

AB: tell the car to turn around

AB: this isn’t your problem

FW: sorry love, just arrived. i love you, love Jaz. wish me luck!

[CN: Frank Wills successfully negotiated the passage into Arizona of six heavy-haul trucks, each carrying a four-meter-tall, 150-ton spent fuel cask. These were unloaded at PVSM and moved to the interim storage facility. Several months later, then Governor-President of Texas Arnold Madwell mentioned the incident in a speech on the floor of the United Nations, citing it as an example of “deep-state favoritism.” In any case, two more shipments from California were delivered with Wills’ help over the following year before the State of Arizona sued the ISDO and brought charges against him. Wills was denied bail, having been deemed a flight risk largely on the evidence of this exchange with his wife. However, before his trial could complete, he was pardoned in the First Great Amnesty of 2038. After his release, Wills retired from the ISDO and moved back to Seattle, where he lived with his wife, daughter, and family dog until his death in 2049.]

Exhibit 4

Supplied to this exhibition by the Zepeda family

Email dated October 2, 2041

From: PVSM Facilities Manager Terrol Zepeda (tzepeda@isdo.gov)

To: Brigadier-Colonel Matt Grier of the Arizona Freedom Guard (militiamatt@afg.club.az)

Hi Matt,

One of your little soldier boys gave me your email address when they came around to shake us down yesterday. I understand that you think you’re hot shit. And I see why you’d think that. I suppose it takes real big cojones to send a drone swarm to take potshots at our elected legislators and scare underpaid staffers out of some government offices. It takes even bigger ones to declare a new state capital in PAYSON of all places! But I’m writing you to tell you that no matter how big your cojones, what you’re messing with when you mess with Signal Mountain is way above your pay grade.

Let’s say you come by with your soldier boys with some big heavy power tools and you cut your way through three feet of high-grade concrete and steel to actually get into a dry cask. Why you’d want to do that is beyond me, but your soldier boys seemed to think I’m hiding aliens or Elvis or something in there. But you aren’t going to find anything like that. The only thing you’re going to find is death.

Do you know what 1000 rem/hr does to a human body? That’s a lethal dose in sub-thirty minutes. Do you know what it’s like to die like that? It’s like getting chemo times a thousand. You lose your appetite and get real skinny. You vomit. You get dizzy and dumb. You get itchy, and then your itches turn to blisters and ulcers. You get seizures. You shit yourself. It’s a full-time job.

Let’s say you wise up, and you don’t stick around long enough to get the lethal dose. Well, then you’re just looking at cancer, racing towards you like an angry rodeo bull. I know you guys are all keen to die in glorious battle, but you’ll have to really get a move on if you’re going to do so before the cancer takes you out.

You ever heard the phrase, “this is not a place of honor”? You militia guys love your honor, right? It means there’s nothing good here for you. There’s no cashing in here. We have nothing for you to loot that anyone in the world wants. Quite the opposite, actually.

[CN: The phrase “this is not a place of honor” is a classic meme in nuclear semiotics, originating in a 1993 report from Sandia National Laboratories. The report explored what kind of messaging should be used to warn future peoples away from nuclear waste disposal sites. The assumption was that present-day institutions, governments, historical and geographical knowledge, and even languages would not exist for the duration of spent fuel’s dangerous lifecycle—a rare case of humility on the part of agencies that, until the Fracture, often refused to acknowledge their own civic mortality. Such intellectual exercises were among the first examples of attempting to weave consideration for future peoples into public policy, and thus part of the DNA of our present-day doctrine of intergenerational consent.]

But by holding onto this stuff, by keeping the casks well maintained and monitored and away from fools like your soldier boys, by putting ourselves at risk to keep them from hurting anyone else, we are doing humankind a vital service, one that transcends the sorry squabbles that have brought men like you so much power.

So whatever your ambitions for Arizona—you can declare yourself emperor and wear a funny hat, for all I care—stay away from Signal Mountain. Unless you have a plan to cure cancer, that is, along with all your other nonsense promises. In which case, be my guest.

Radioactively,

Terrol Zepeda, Facilities Manager

[CN: The Arizona Freedom Guard briefly declared itself the divinely appointed leaders of an independent Arizona, but would fail to successfully form a functional government. Two years later, they would dissolve amid California-backed mass protests and occupations. A new provisional government would be elected that would prove relatively stable for the rest of the Fracture. Following Zepeda’s missive, no militia activity would trouble the facility for the duration of the unrest.]

Exhibit 5

From the ISDO digital archives, released to the public in 2055 as part of the Chicago Accords Transparency and Reconciliation Process

Automated video transcript excerpt, ISDO Board of Directors Meeting, February 8, 2050

In attendance: Acting Director Julie Bakir, Acting Deputy Director Avery McLean, Acting Liaison for the Provisional Northeast Region Oro Descoteaux, Acting Liaison for the Provisional Midwest Region Chandra Homes, Facilities Manager Terrol Zepeda

Absent: Acting Liaison for the Provisional Southern Region Graeme Shields, Acting Liaison for the Provisional Western Region Layla Song-Gutierrez

[CN: By this point in the Fracture, the ISDO was pursuing its mandate under the auspices of the Interstate Nonaggression and Cooperation Pact of 2046 (INC, colloquially pronounced “ink”), which created a legal framework to allow certain former federal agencies to continue operating across state lines. The ISDO’s bylaws, however, required that board members be appointed by the now-nonexistent Congress—thus the bureaucratic fiction-of-convenience of appending “acting” and “provisional” to much of what had been normalized about its own structure and daily activities.]

JB: Any word on the Cooper Station shipment?

CH: Should be crossing the nu-zone into Wylorado as we speak.

[CN: One of many, often short-lived, compound state formations in the west. Announced in 2043 only days after the Big Walk, Wylorado lasted until 2051, when its internal politics got too fractious and it split again—Wyoming merging with the Dakota Freehold, while Colorado joined the networked governance platform of the New Technopublic.]

JB: Good. God, I hate this waiting part. Every time, it feels like we’re shoving a pear through the eye of a needle.

CH: I know. But it’s gone smoothly so far, and the Kansans seem pretty copacetic these days. As long as we can dodge interference by particularly stupid and ambitious bandits, we should be fine.

AM: I’ve got UNSAT eyes on the train. They’ll have plenty of warning if anyone decides to get frisky.

JB: Thanks Ave. Okay, enough fretting. Oro, any updates?

OD: Nothing major. Reclamation finished at Vermont Yankee. This time next year there will be a field of wildflowers and a plaque where the casks used to sit, Gaia willing.

[CN: Despite their provisional status, the ISDO had by this time successfully expanded their mandate to include cleanup and remediation of the sites that had previously been used to store spent fuel in situ: facilities like the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant in Vernon and Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville, Nebraska. The extensive process of extracting potentially contaminated materials, removing structures, and beautifying the land would later become a model for the reclamation of thousands of former gas stations throughout North America.]

JB: Beautiful. Okay, I think the area reports are done. Any new business before we wrap up?

TZ: Actually, I have something. Though in some ways it’s more old business than new. Old old.

JB: Okay. What’s on your mind, Terrol?

TZ: Well, I’ll just come out and say it. We need to start talking about a permanent repository.

AM: Is this really the time? Optimistic reports aside, we’re barely holding it together here. I mean, Dakota is saber-rattling over corn prices. Layla is with her sibling in Singapore brokering who-knows-what-deal with China, and all the chaos that will bring. Graeme isn’t even here because NewConf is in another data blackout. We don’t know whether the INC will hold and if we’ll all still have jobs next year, much less where to even begin with a permanent repository.

TZ: Then we need to start the process of siting a new interim facility. Something. 2060 may seem an age away to the rest of you Fracture-babies, but I’m old enough to remember how long and hard it was to make Signal Mountain happen, how fraught the process. If things are as crazy as you say, I expect it will take more time the second time around, not less.

OD: All due respect—you’re the only one of us actually approved by the old Congress, after all—but why do we have to re-site at all?

TZ: Pursuant to the agreement⁠—

OD: Yes, consent runs out, I know. But so much of the original compact has had to flex and bend to accommodate the Fracture. Why not the end date, as well? It’s not like the facility will turn into a pumpkin when the clock strikes midnight.

CH: We’ve been tremendously lucky over the years that we haven’t had any militants get hold of any waste. We all know there are groups out there that would love to dirty the INC with a literal dirty bomb. Heck, Terrol, you know that better than the rest of us, because you’ve actually dealt with them before. Changing things up too much at this juncture feels like seriously rolling the dice.

TZ: This is how it always goes. Everyone is always happy with how things are, so long as they’re not the ones holding the bag of shit. This organization made a promise. If we back out of that, are we any better than the people that ripped this country apart?

JB: Careful now. It is the policy of this board to be firmly neutral on questions of the legal or moral validity of any and all separation decisions.

TZ: Fine. I can do better anyway. If we scuttle the parts of the agreement that are inconvenient to us, does that make us better than the settler-colonist USA that went back on its word over and over again to steal land from Native people? When Frank Wills hired me twenty years ago, he promised me it wasn’t going to be like that. And here we are, spitting on his grave already.

[Long pause.]

JB: We all miss Frank, Terrol. I know none of us had the relationship with him you did, but he meant a lot to this organization. I don’t think anyone here is trying to disrespect his memory.

TZ: My point is, we’re only still here, doing this work today, against all the odds, because people like Frank decided that we should do right by the people we ask to trust us despite the ebb and flow of circumstance. Frank thought the agreements we make for the long-term future should matter more than the short-term grievances we have against each other.

JB: Okay, point taken. You’re right that we have an obligation to address the 2060 consent expiration. And you’re right that, as hard as it is to see the future these days, we shouldn’t put it off. Having that conversation, and acting on it, will take a long time. But the others are right that circumstances are vastly different than they were twenty years ago. And in some ways, things are easier.

AM: What do you mean?

JB: I mean, the original laws binding this process aren’t in effect. Under INC, I think we could start talking about a permanent repository. But I think the first place we would want to look at would be Signal Mountain. Would you be comfortable with that?

TZ: I don’t know. It’s not up to me. It would mean renegotiating the compact entirely. And I know some people are going to feel burned by that.

JB: Well, what has the Fracture been about if not renegotiation? And sometimes playing with a little fire.

TZ: Thing is, the entire consent process was premised on the idea that this was an interim facility. Agreeing to three decades is one thing. People do that all the time, like taking out a mortgage—though I’m not sure anyone would have agreed to anything if they’d known it would be these years. But agreeing to forever is a whole other matter. You’re making a choice for people who haven’t been born yet. Then again, I suppose we’re always doing that, aren’t we? My daughter didn’t choose to be born in the USA, on a reservation. And my grandkids won’t get to choose their birth country either, whatever that turns out to be when this is all over. So, am I comfortable? No. But we could try.

Exhibit 6

A letter from the curator, Yasmin Zepeda, to her grandfather, Terrol Zepeda, on the occasion of the twentieth Interdependence Day, October 4, 2075

Dear Honored Grandfather,

How are you? Happy Interdependence Day! My mom says to tell you that we missed you this year, and that you should come next year to help her with all the food, but that we know it was important for you to be in Chicago for the ceremony at the capitol. I wish I could have gone with you, but Mom says I’ve missed too much school this year already.

Anyway, I’m writing because Mom said I should thank you for helping me with my report on the Reunification. It was really interesting to hear from an older person about what it felt like to live through the whole Fracture. How you didn’t know when it would end, but everything does. And how when the accords happened you weren’t sure they would last, because nothing does. And how it all complicated your work at Signal Mountain. This was the quote from you I included in my report: “Our waste is about the only thing we make that will truly outlive us. It matters that we deal with it right.”

Mom took me to Signal Mountain the other day, the park anyway, way early in the morning before it got hot. I know you haven’t been back since you retired, but I wanted to tell you that it looks pretty good. The ground was covered in that bright green desert fuzz that pops up after a good monsoon, like we just had, and the trees and bushes and saguaros seemed happy. We walked around the trails, reading all the signs, which let me practice my Oʼodham and my Spanish and my Navajo all at the same time. Some of them were really funny lol. Then we hiked allll the way up the mountain to the overlook. Mom said we could take one of those four-wheeled battery bikes, but I was strong and did it with my own two feet. Up there we could see the mouth of the repository, with the train tracks that run up to it stretching way into the distance. It was big! The signs said they’d take the tracks out in another forty years, when all the little modular reactors people built during the Grid Crisis are shut down.

Mom says she hopes they also cover up the entrance to the repository one day, and take down all the signs and stuff, so that people can just forget about this place forever. But I like the signs, especially the ones that mention you. I like the big one over the entrance that says “THIS IS A PLACE OF HONOR,” and the audio you can touch into that has thank you messages from all the communities around the country that got to send their waste here, where it won’t hurt anyone. There’s even a message from a lady on the Council of Presidents about how part of the mandate of Reunification is to try to really be worthy of the people’s trust for the first time ever, since for so long a lot of people didn’t feel that way about their governments, or their neighbors, or anyone. I think it’s nice to remember.

Anyway, I have to go help set the table. I hope they feed you well at the capitol.

Love,

Yasmin