“God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, the fire next time!”
— from a traditional spiritual
Last week, Czar Vladimir the Last raised the specter of nuclear weapons in his personal war against Ukraine. Somewhere in North Korea, Kim Jong Un is jumping up and down screaming “he’s stealing my act!”
Several days earlier, NBC “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd raised that exact question.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ legendary doomsday clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight in January before the despot rode out to join the other three macabre horsemen, his paranoia peaking just as murmurs of the “Julius Caesar solution” circulated.
Things have reached a point that the gloomiest doomsday forecast since the 1964 films “Fail Safe” and “Dr. Strangelove” is now hopeful by comparison. (See below)
I’ve been down this road many times, especially after 9/11/2001.
From the 11-11-2001 Tribune: “Imagine yourself a total stranger in the strangest of lands, a star-traveler from a distant galaxy. You are charged with examining the denizens of this small planet and reporting back.
“Dear Boss: I recommend that we steer well clear of the major tribes of this world. They are constantly at war killing their own kind and other life forms. The whole planet seems locked in a neverending orgy of consumption. The stronger eat the weaker as they do on many other primal orbs, but this place seems to suffer from inverse evolution. The higher the intelligence of the species, the more often I have witnessed killing for no reason at all.
“The most numerous life forms, single-celled organisms and their close relatives, have learned to survive by inhabiting larger creatures either as parasites or symbionts.
“In sheer numbers, the dominant species, by far, are viruses and bacteria. These are followed by various vegetable life forms and exoskeletal, multi-legged animals.
“The most intelligent inhabitants have evolved in very divergent ways. Dolphins prefer the simple life of the sea. Although humans do not differ from each other to any appreciable degree, they nonetheless group together in primitive and illogical ways. They ostracize and exploit their own based on the superficial and the imagined.
“They often kill each other in slavish devotion to this superficiality.
Such concentration on the meaningless produces so much pain and suffering. They have invested great volumes of treasure and work in order to traverse this small globe faster and faster. Apparently, only speed matters.
“They are addicted to placing themselves into flimsy, portable canisters filled with high explosives. Then, in an ongoing orgy of bravado and arrogance, they hurtle the canisters toward each other at great speed.
On land, sea and air, most usually miss by at least a few inches.
Nonetheless, every year tens of thousands are killed and hundreds of thousands become seriously and painfully injured whenever these shells encounter a maloccurrence.
“The crude fuel for these devices pollutes and endangers the entire planet when burned. As a semi-scarce and hard to extract natural resource, possession of the fuel has become the source of endless war.
“Recommendation: avoid this planet until the current dominant life forms evolve into more interesting species or are replaced by others. End report.”
From the 10-28-2001 Tribune:
“GOV. GLOOM’S CRYSTAL BALL. In 1985, a series of short stories on nuclear disarmament were solicited from prominent people. Gov. Richard Lamm, D-Colo., co-authored one. The scenario: a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan causes such macabre destruction that the world puts down its nukes.
“Every time India and Pakistan rattle their glowing sabers, I am reminded that life imitates art. Such a result would prove perfectly consistent with the history of the tribes of mankind. Genetically almost identical, people nonetheless kill and maim each other over superficial, superstition-based tribal differences.
“Will some god or superior extra-terrestrial send some future Lot to our big blue global Sodom and Gomorrah? Will that emissary again prove unable to find 10 just men? Would that almighty feel justified in raining fire and brimstone down on such a corrupt place? We’ve been warned many times.”
Lamm beat out more than 1,300 entrants in that 1985 essay contest sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
“I feel with an Old Testament certainty that we cannot continue indefinitely the way the world is now going with the world’s weapons set on a hair trigger and the doomsday clock at five minutes to midnight,” the late Colorado governor stated when informed he’d won.
There’s the prelude. We may be living (and dying) through the sequel. Barry McGuire’s 1968 anthem will be a hit all over again.
Don’t you understand what I’m trying to say?
Can’t you feel the fear that I’m feeling today?
If the button is pushed, there’s no running away
There’ll be no one to save with the world in a grave
The poundin’ of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead but don’t leave a trace
Hate your next door neighbor but don’t forget to say grace
And you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend
You don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction
=====
Bye bye Miss American Pie.
When will we ever learn?
THE ROLLING LOGANS. Sparks RTCRide transit operator Michael Lansborough survived major heart surgery and even attended a Teamsters Union meeting last month (chauffeured by fellow Teamster Tim Radley.)
Mike is sole support of his wife and son, Logan, who has no lower legs due to a genetic flaw but nonetheless took to his wheelchair and joined his dad in downtown Reno picket lines during the Hat Trick Strikes of 2021. (Photos at the front page of NevadaLabor.com/)
A GoFundMe page has been set up by friends https://gofund.me/7eae2ed0
Be generous. If you would like to help by check, make it payable to Michael Lansborough and send to his attention at Teamsters Local 533, 1190 Selmi Drive, Suite 100, Reno NV 89512.
Thanks to all the Barbwire readers and union members who have anted in, the most positive news I’ve seen recently.
Join me in donating. Please. And tell your friends.
Take care of each other and be careful out there.
Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.
Andrew Quarantino Barbano is a 53-year Nevadan and editor of NevadaLabor.com/ Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Tribune since 1988. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us
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