Do burgers hasten nuclear apocalypse?
I finally finished Hemingway’s Islands in the Stream. Very good. Long, for Hemingway. Also been reading Ursula K. Le Guin and H. P. Lovecraft, and enjoy both.
Had a going-away party Thursday night, despite the fact that I’m not leaving for another month. We managed to hook a 360 up to the projector and speakers in my church building, and played Rock Band all night. It was epic, despite several painful song fails, and even more painful video footage of me attempting to sing “Highway Star”. Aaanyway.
Not to be alarmist or anything, but folks, start investing in bomb shelters. Literal ones. For literal bombs. You may have noticed, scrunched in between John Edwards’ illicit affair and relentless Olympic coverage and, of course, the presidential campaign, a news item about Russia invading Georgia, which probably wouldn’t have been reported at all if it didn’t affect the presidential campaign. To be fair, Georgia started the invading (of a separatist province, recognized by the international community as part of Georgia), justly or unjustly, at which point Russia retaliated, justly or unjustly, and rolled into Georgia swiftly and with overwhelming military force. My opinion is that both invasions were unjustified, but regardless, international tensions are high. Some people say we’re on the brink of the Cold War, others of World War III. I have to say that neither statement is out of the question. Russia has threatened Poland, openly, with a treatment similar to Georgia’s should we install defensive missiles on Polish ground as per a recent treaty.
Besides possibly setting up Cold War II, this event does two things: first, McCain suddenly looks much better than Obama for president. I might even vote for him. Second, and more importantly, Watchmen is suddenly much more relevant.
Or possibly nothing beyond what has already happened will happen. I tend towards pessimism and paranoia; you may comfort yourselves with that.
Also, I just happened to wonder today: why have I never heard any kind of coherent reasoning for being vegetarian/vegan? I’ve been trying to think up reasons for being vegetarian, and most of what I’m coming up with seems to me completely ludicrous. It’s fine if you just don’t like meat, obviously (I feel like I need to shower after eating at Burger King, so I can sympathize), and I don’t know enough about nutrition to give the health argument more than a raised eyebrow, but I simply don’t get the ethics argument or the environmental argument (and I doubt many people in the United States hold religious beliefs that require vegetarianism, but if we do have Pythagoreans among us, I have very little to say to them). Anyone care to explain?
Walt Kelly was a comic strip artist back before comics came in strips, i.e., when he had whole pages to work with. He wrote Pogo, and it is so much better than anything in recent years (with the possible exception of Calvin & Hobbes). Anyway, he had a brilliant sequence beginning with one of the characters (Howland, an owl) remarking that Georgia is a Soviet Republic, which of course starts another character (a bear, dressed in a Santa Claus suit because of events a couple of pages back) worrying about other states, prompting Howland to forge a letter to stop the bear’s crying. The letter reads, “Yes, Santa Claus, there is a Virginia.”
Howland: “Well, I guess THAT reduces the whole argument to a mizubble absurdity.”