Now for a word from the realm of politics.
Wondering if you’ve all been following this New Yorker article which suggests that the Bush II administration intends to use nukes against Iran.
For some reason–I am sure you can’t imagine why–I find this story really, really unsettling. For 60 years the nuclear genie has been kept in its bottle. If this administration, which is probably in my view one of the worst on record, takes this next step–if it strikes first with a nuclear weapon in the name of nuclear nonproliferation–it would really be incredible. Unspeakable, really. Worse than monstrous.
Here’s a quote from Thomas Pynchon’s V. (1961), which I’m reading now, and which put me in the right mood to receive this bit of news.
…Corpse fingers jabbed in the air. “But someday, Porpentine, I, or another, will catch you off guard. Loving, hating, even showing some absent minded sympathy. I’ll watch you. The moment you forget yourself enough to admit another’s humanity, see him as a person and not a symbol–then perhaps–“
“What is humanity.”
“You ask the obvious, ha, ha. Humanity is something to destroy.”