A couple weeks ago, I was driving to the gas station to meet up with Christian when this story played on NPR. It’s been a rough month or two anyway, emotionally, and the idea that we could so casually be throwing away the end of the Cold War actually had me in tears, driving across town. I think the words I screamed at the radio went something like, “What is WRONG with you people? Didn’t you learn anything the LAST time?”
Less than 48 hours later, I was standing here:
Part of me wanted to geek out at being in the same space as something that had so profoundly impacted human history. But in the wake of that report–which NOBODY’S EVEN PAYING ATTENTION TO!–my sense of awe in the presence of history was overshadowed by a single, crushing thought:
My kids were never supposed to have to deal with the threat of nuclear war. This was the one thing the world actually fixed when I was a kid.
What does it matter if Russia puts up intermediate-range missiles? So their missiles could get to us faster than ours could get to them. Big whoop-de-doo. Is this a pissing contest? If they fire intermediate range missiles, we’ll fire long range ones, and maybe we’ll be dead before they are but they’re going to be just as dead. How can anyone even entertain the notion that starting up an arms race again could possibly be a good idea? I thought we all learned better than that thirty years ago!
It occurs to me that day after day after day, we’re all losing our minds about the wrong news items.
Kathleen M. Basi 