It's Too Hard to Even Think About It

The other day I heard a talk about the current state of arms control. It's not good.

For the first time in 50 years, the U.S. is not involved in any arms control talks--and the administration is explicitly not interested. Yes, Eisenhower supported arms control negotiations, as did Nixon, Ford, and Bush I. Not W, though.

As we've been not talking, Pakistan and India have gone nuclear, and North Korea and Iran are on their way. There are 1200 tons of uranium and 200 tons of plutonium hanging out in the former Soviet Union (the bomb dropped on Nagasaki used 12 tons of plutonium, and weapons have certainly gotten more efficient in the last 60 years). Significant poundage, if not tonnage, is unaccounted for. Meanwhile--and here I'm going to stop being specific because just googling this shit stresses me out--there are umpteen nuclear missiles and more countries doing the research and basically we're in a very bad situation here.

By the time the guy stopped talking, I was shaking. He was reasonably cheerful, but I guess he thinks about this stuff all the time, so he's used to it. I figure, though, that if you're in the arms control business, you better be playing Haydn sonatas or painting watercolors in your spare time, because the only thing that's going to counter that grimness is the temporary pleasure of beauty.

I feel about nuclear weapons the same way I feel about avian flu: totally petrified, totally powerless, and, as a result, barely able to think about it for more than a moment. Which doesn't help anything, but then again, me thinking about it doesn't help anything.

These are some grim times we live in.