ELEVENTH IN LINE




About This Blog
A blog about my life, universe, etc. At any given time you might find something endlessly interesting or just me ruminating on something else, which no one (not even myself) finds interesting. That's the way blogs go, I suppose. Anyway, I was eleventh in line, and you weren't. Hah!

About Me
Name:
Sarah
Age:
26
Residence:
Columbus, OH
Religion:
LDS
Political Score:
5.00/-2.15
Job:
Temp @ JPMorgan Chase
College:
Ohio State University
Majors:
Political Science, International Studies
High School: Home Educated
Hobbies:
Reading, standing in line for things, writing, research
Resume:
HotJobs
Email:
lloannna@gmail.com

About My Family
My mom is a
lawyer in Pickerington; my stepdad and dad are computer guys, and my stepmom (who works with my dad) is an engineer. My sisters are, in order of age, a photographer, an artist, and a person too young to have her own website. My brothers are, in order of age, living up north, and again, a person too young to have a website. At some point soon I'll be collecting links for my aunts, uncle, and cousins. ^_^

Message Services
(Please see the notes below the Comment Policy before sending me a message)
AIM:
lloannna
ICQ:
29395930
Yahoo:
lloannna



My CafePress Designs

Even More CafePress Designs



Star Wars: Episode 3 Line (Hollywood)
My Star Wars Line page






NaNoWriMo 2007:
My Novel: Cipere Lumen

Official NaNoWriMo 2006 Winner


NaNoWriMo 2006:
My Novel: The Manatee Conspiracy

Official NaNoWriMo 2006 Winner


NaNoWriMo 2005:
My Novel: Beyond the Cliffs of Kefira

Official NaNoWriMo 2005 Participant



NaNoWriMo 2004:
My Novel: sul Okyar tir taTz'ileea

National Novel Writing Month

Friday, February 11, 2005
 
And then there's the Hermit Kingdom...  
You know, the world waits until I say "I'm not going to blog for a while" to start an accelerated messiness process (I mean, it's always messy, and usually getting messier on principle -- it's the big movements that wait until I'm annoyed with the world) and I'm really tired of its lack of sensitivity. I mean, what about my needs??

Anyway, North Korea decided to make its semi-regular contribution to the global messiness level today, with a public announcement regarding it's possession of a nuclear bomb.

Now, who is surprised by this? Really. How many regimes on this planet, which don't already have nuclear weapons, are known to be trying to get them? And which one is the most secretive, least likely to be swayed by global opinion or under-the-table international bribery efforts, and so forth? I mean, duh. These people have been asserting their right to have one for, oh I don't know, as long as I can remember. They supposedly told US negotiators that they already had one almost two years ago. And I think that Iraq's example has given everyone on this planet a really clear notion of exactly why you don't want the US thinking you have weapons of mass destruction, unless you're serious (and maybe not even then, but we know that North Korea's government is even less prone to rational thinking than most governments, and no government is exactly getting an A+ in that subject even on a good day) -- they know that we aren't joking around, and they know that we assume they aren't joking around.

Anyway, it seems to me that this all amounts to the equivalent of a man who tells the police (who have him surrounded) that he has a gun, too. He knows there are 80 of them and one of him, and sure he's got a couple of hostages, but he can't really watch/control them all that well, and he's got like, zero actual power over those guys in the uniforms. Saying he has a gun seems, from his position, to be a way of leveling the playing field -- he's powerful, and someone to be listened to, and someone to be consulted, and you had better not be trying to sneak his hostages some food while he's not looking, because he can shoot them, or you, any time he wants.

Before, it was like "Umm, chief, he might have a gun" and lots of worried "let's see if we can watch him to figure out if he has a gun, and maybe if we provide him with steel that's only good for making spoons, he'll be so happy that he'll forget about wanting a gun" talks, with the guy who owns the building next door and the governor and the hostage-taker's wife, and the dog catcher, and a few eager but relatively powerless police officers all in on the conversation. It was like a group conference by telephone, with more worrying about the placement of flags and who gets to sit where, than one would ordinarily expect.

Is it, therefore, any surprise that the hostage-taker, in that scenario, demands to talk only with the chief negotiator/police chief, and tells the dog-catcher and his friends and everyone who's listening on the radio that he has a gun, too? No it isn't.

In any case, the owner of the building and the hostage-taker's wife and everyone listening on the radio knew he had a gun already, and even if he didn't for sure, he was still awfully dangerous, what with the hostages and his gigantic collection of hunting knives and the stockpile of rat poison in the garage. Now we've all admitted it to each other -- how's about we actually solve the problem that's been there, staring us in the face, for the last 50 years?

. | 0 comments |

Comments: Post a Comment

Because only so many people can be eleventh in line.