Oh, Charlie is a
furry cat,
a purry what-me-worry cat;
He's mightly delighty
but be careful 'cause he's bite-y;
King Charlie knows he’s quite a sight;
I bet you'd better pet him right!
Oh, Katniss is a 'fraidy cat,
a shady such-a-lady cat;
She's hissy but she's blissy
and she's super sweet and kissy;
Queen Katniss, Mistress of the Night;
I bet you'd better pet her right!
Nuclear Blatancy Day, a Modest Proposal
I have concerns about the political
dangers of a standing nuclear army; yet I also agree that SAC’s power to
destroy civilization should not be in the hands of recruits. How, then, do we
reconcile citizen armies with nuclear technology?
Jonathan
Schell offers a partial solution in his book, “The Abolition”, which proposes
that the USA become a “latent” nuclear power; that is, that it dismantle all
actual nuclear bombs, but retain (and indeed strengthen) its ability to swiftly
build those bombs. We keep the know-how and the infrastructure and the fissile
materials, but hold off on building the accursed things unless we need them
right away. You could call it just-in-time civicide; like taking the bullet out
of the rifle over the fireplace. Nuclear latency is purified deterrence; a way
for America to say to the world that we don’t feel like killing a million
people today, so don’t make us want to.
I
like Schell’s idea, but I think it’s incomplete. It’s too rational, it lacks
the aura of apocalyptic histrionics so natural to all things nuclear. I
therefore offer the following modest proposal: Nuclear Blatancy Day. It’ll work like this:
Every
Presidential election year, college and high school students across the country
submit their bomb designs. The winning entries are cast into metal and chips
(but no explosives and fissile materials, of course) and sent to the Nevada
Test Range. There the bombs are loaded with plutonium from the armory, and lowered
deep underground.
The
contestants arrive, and their families, and technicians, and generals, and
reporters, and Presidential candidates, and foreign dignitaries. Also on hand
are marching bands (pro-bomb) and satirical giant-puppet troupes (anti-bomb).
Both groups are welcomed as essential components of the inherently mixed
message being sent that day. The Presidential candidates speak blandly of
the People’s Bomb; the grandmother from Hiroshima pleads passionately for
peace.
The
countdown starts. Five, four, three, two, one, zero! Suddenly new craters
collapse in the Nevada desert. The marching bands cheer, the puppeteers boo,
and the foreign dignitaries look at each other nervously. Technicians announce
yields; the winning contestants get scholarships and job offers; and the
dignitary from Japan quietly tells the other dignitaries that these Americans
are indeed as crazy as they look, so don’t mess with them!
The
preceding three paragraphs are satire; but they are a satire that would work.
It’s absurd, but slightly less absurd than what already exists. I offer it as
my fulsome praise, and also my excoriating critique, of America and
civilization and the entire human race.
On Hoplodementia
The suffix “hoplo-” means “weapon”. This suggests words; “hoplophobia”, meaning fear of weapons; “hoplophilia”, meaning love of weapons; and “hoplodementia”, meaning mindlessness about weapons.
Our plague of armed murderous beta-males is a clear instance of such mindlessness, but I think the mindlessness is far more widespread that that. Consider for instance Ben Carson’s lame-o brag that we all should rush the next shooter, for that is what he would do. Except that when he was stuck-up at a Popeyes, he said, “I believe you want that man behind the counter”. Many have mocked his cravenness at that moment, but I don’t mind; it was a rational cowardice; what I object to was his idiotic braggadocio.
The thing is, not only is hoplophobia rational; not only does it obey natural instincts honed by megayears of evolution; on top of that, hoplophobia respects the purpose of weapons! You are supposed to be scared of weapons! That’s the point of weapons; inspiring fear is what they’re for! (Or failing that, leaving behind a pile of corpses.) To fail to express hoplophobia is to express hoplodementia! Carson managed to do both.
The open-carry people also express hoplodementia. They don’t get why most people react to their strutting with horror and revulsion. They say, we just want people to get used to the sight of weapons. Used to them?! If the open-carry clowns were death-cult terror gangsters lording it over cringing disposable untermenchen, then they’d be making sense. Evil sense, but sense. But as is, they are not even aware of the vile figure that they cut.
Or how about the nukes? Including specifically the nuclear power plants. The original bomb-makers passed over the thorium cycle for the plutonium cycle, precisely because the thorium cycle is useless for building devices that can kill a million people in a fraction of a second. (The thorium cycle makes plutonium contaminated with a gamma-emitter; this is hazardous to work with, it messes up electronics, and reveals its presence to the enemy.) So the existing ‘civilian’ nukes were weapons-feeders from the beginning. The nuclear technicians are well aware of this, yet they are miffed that the civilian populace is scared of their nuclear power plants. They blame Greenpeace, superstition, technophobia... everything but whom they see in the mirror.
And as for the bombs themselves; the entire Cold War was hoplodemented. It was thermonuclear superpower state terrorism, designed to remind everyone at all times that our lives were worthless, meaningless, disposable at a moment’s notice. It was a crime against humanity, a crime against the very idea of humanity. Under the Cold War, nobody was any better than a speck of dirt; and that was the foundation of world order!
Luckily for us all, Gorby was slightly saner than Ronnie, so he walked away from that cozy arrangement. The nukes remain, and with them their moral rot, but they are seen as an embarrassment; a vulgar explicit admission of the insane nature of state power; its unworthiness to exist, for look what it relies upon.
With the end of the Cold War, all that slave-conditioning had to go somewhere. It did not escape my notice that the World Trade Center site was called “Ground Zero” after 9/11; but frankly I find a crotch-bomber to be unimpressive compared to Stalin’s 10,000 hell-bombs.
And now the nation’s having a fit of gun dementia. There’s the beta-boyz; and also there’s the shoot-first cops. But I’ll give the Blue Gang this much self-awareness; they’re defensive about their crimes because they know that they’re in the wrong.
Addendum: Hoplodemented Foreign Policy
America’s foreign policy is also hoplodemented, at least amongst the so-called hawks. Dropping bombs is their first, second and last solution to any overseas problem, large or small. But their actual record of solving those problems is slim to none; in fact their bomb-dropping generally makes the problems bigger, so of course that requires more bomb-dropping. A positive feedback loop; hoplodementia in action.
Five Speculative Questions Sharpened
Five speculative questions:
Is there life after death?
Is there intelligent life on other planets?
Why is there something rather than nothing?
What does life mean?
Does God exist?
Sharpened:
Is there life before death?
Is there intelligent life on this planet?
Is there something rather than nothing?
How does life mean?
Do we exist?
Amoeba’s Dilemma
Lou Kauffman:
Replacement Perplexity
An intelligent amoeba confided
That he was perplexed and besided.
Which one is me,
said he to he
And where do I go when divided?
Nathaniel Hellerstein:
Divided Multiplication
The other amoeba replied
It is you you are floating beside
For surely you see,
I am you, you are me
By dividing, you-and-I multiplied.
Elvis is Undead!
Graceville – The peace of the grave was shattered last night when a UFO raided Graceland. Space aliens from the flying saucer abducted Elvis’s rotting corpse and restored the dead singer to a zombified semblance of pseudo-life.
“He’s baaack,” said the mayor of Memphis, “and he’s baaad!”
“Undead, he sounds just as bad as he did alive,” said Ditsy Oddbonken, recording secretary of the Elvis Former Fan Club. “And when we saw his corpse twitching there in that spotlight cast by the UFO – well, you could just tell that Elvis’s days of being alive are way behind him.”
The Elvis zombie performed only briefly; a few minutes of “Heartbreak Hotel” convinced the alien invaders to return Elvis’s undead body to the grave.
“When Elvis climbed back into that open grave, why, tears almost fell from my eyes,” said Joseph Allbright. “Almost. And when he stopped singing, I almost missed the sound of his voice. Almost.”
A disillusioned fan said, “Nothing has changed. Elvis is still dead.”
Ten-Front War
Washington, DC – Civilian and military officials announced today that they have ‘irrevokably committed’ all Establishment resources to a Ten-Front War. These are the ten fronts:
War on Crime
War on Drugs
War on Porn
War on Gays
War on the Poor
War on Immigrants
War on Workers
War on Women
War on the Family
War on the Earth
High-level officials expressed confidence that they shall be victorious on every single front, despite the fact that each foe is either unbeatable or indispensable. They added that losing on even one of these ten fronts is ‘unthinkable’, and therefore not to be thought about.
“In our lifetime,” said Dr. Strangelove, “we shall achieve the total elimination of all ten of our enemies. There will be no crime, no drugs, no porn, no gays, no poor, no immigrants, no workers, no women, no families, and no Earth.”
When our intrepid National Liar reporter asked what there will be, Dr. Strangelove replied, “No comment.”
