The Gods of War are walking the Earth.
The bravery of the Ukrainian people, juxtaposed against the cruelty of the Russian would-be Empire, is historic in its scope and depth, resonant with emotion, dynamically awful.
I may have beefs with my local government, we have our differences, but I would never call it tyranny. Not compared to what we see happening in older parts of the civilized world right now.
I'm a Gen-Xer. We were raised on all of the things that existed before everything we have today. We didn't have e-mail; we had paper and pens and envelopes and stamps. Our parents drove us around in station wagons, not "crossovers" or SUVs. We didn't have a remote control... We WERE the remote control.
The telephone was attached to the wall. Reading material was generally printed. We weren't allowed to use calculators in school because that was considered cheating. There was no Google - some families had an encyclopaedia at home, and beyond that, we had to deal with the Dewey Decimal System and the stupid Index Card Catalog at the library.
We adapted to all these changes, just as our forebears adapted from the slide rule to the computer. But one thing remained the same:
The threat of global thermonuclear war.
Having lost her young son in 2015, my sister has infrequently suggested that Charlie must have died in order to be spared some other horrific event... It's kind of hard to argue with that right now, with Russia's nuclear forces on high alert, their ICBMs aimed principally at us.
My dad, also a Charlie, is a retired geography professor, and he served in the Air Force way back when, as an officer. He has a pretty good understanding of which cities in America will be important targets to the enemy in the event of a nuclear exchange.
Kalamazoo is an unassuming rail and freeway hub connecting millions of people between major cities like Chicago, Detroit and Grand Rapids. Strike One.
We have an airport, a university (with a medical school no less) and two hospitals that serve the whole region. Strike Two.
And we have Pfizer, where the Covid-19 vaccine is produced, along with other drugs that enhance the quality of American life, such as Rogaine and Viagra. Strike Three.
In short: Kalamazoo's not gonna make it. The Russians probably have six, eight nukes with our general ZIP code on them (49oo1), maybe more. If the Gods of War decree it, none of us stand a chance.
Historically speaking, with the sand potentially running out of the hourglass, many bad people have sought to atone for their wrongs. They tried to get it off their consciences before the bitter end.
Not here. It's easier for them (and now, for us all) to stick our heads in the sand... As if that would save any of us from being flash-fried like toner on a piece of paper stuck in a copy machine.
pH 2.28.22
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