How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

"Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be human bein's if you didn't have some pretty strong personal feelin's about nuclear combat." -Major T. J. "King" Kong, Dr. Strangelove

So it happened I hear. Did I feel the slight rumbling? Was I napping as a water glass pitched and rippled just so slightly? Just enough to alert me to ominous tidings far to the North. The streets...Were they not packed with solemn faces whose Confucian indifference was wrecked by the nervous hairs standing upright on the backs of their stern necks? Can you imagine the building, elongated metallic whistle we all dreamed up between our ears? Phwwweeeeeee. PHHHHHWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW KABLOOIE! OH MY GOD! ACT NOW! SAVE US!

Maybe I'm just in the heart of an ignorant anthill but people on the train, bus, or street are sort of the same. A robust and stoic people I imagine. The PC Bangs and Noribangs remained packed. Respectively, people were sending sporadic bursts of virtual semi-automatic rifle fire at friends or crooning to the Eagles melodious opus "Hotel California". The Chicken and Beer Hofs still sold chicken and even beer. The neon was lit. The Ginjabans still steamed and soaked Ajeossis and Ajummas alike. Kimchi remains popular and chopsticks are still metal.

Here's the sentiment I've heard repeated many times: North Korea is ridiculous, a joke--harmful chiefly to themselves. Fuck, even China is grumpier with them. However, I find that the American media, President Bush, and the BBC are hyping up the fear factor of it all. On the BBC two interviews with two Korean women had them citing an atmosphere of fear being so pervasive that it must be why everyone is so quiet and unresponsive. Here is some old news: nukes get tested underground and there is the general sensibility that you do not shit where you sleep, as a charming fella might say; although, South Koreans are litter bugs (shit, maybe the big one is coming). Frankly, if Pyongyang goes all billy beserk I imagine they know that 1) they'll get dusted (radioactive fallout) and 2) they'll get dusted (foreign military response). Let's not kid ourselves. Sure, there is political tension and it wasn't a friendly move on Kim's behalf, but it wasn't so outrageous that we all got heart burn and sat in the bathroom reading the answers to the Korean Times crossword just to relax and come down from it all.

Here's what was written on the BBC:
"US ambassador to the UN John Bolton told the BBC: 'If the Security Council of the United Nations can't deal with a threat like that then we have to ask what role it could have in dealing with weapons of mass destruction around the world.'"

Mr. Bolton...John...Johnny...John-o...J. B. and the Answer All Stars...what role could America have in dealing with weapons of mass destruction around the world? I'm sorry, that's right, WMDs are absent from Iraq and I imagine the global community won't not be not rushing to bask in the assurance the U.S. gave by not finding weapons that weren't there. I found that to be a ridiculous statement. Not that I think the UN isn't a complete mess or that American citizenry will even really notice the absurdity of such a statement.