Why Reading is Good.

2002-02-28 - 1:02 a.m.

I am currently reading three books, which is about average for me. Tolkien, Heinlein, and the Qur'an. I recommend all three.

Although right now, I'm totally impressed by Heinlein. I've never read his stuff before, but my partner brought home "Expanded Universe", a collection of his short stories from the late 30s to the end of the 70s. I'm only at the beginning of the 40s, when his stories are about the nuclear bomb, before one was even fired off. The story I just read, "Solution Unsatisfactory", written probably before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour shows how the Cold War might have gone if George W. were in the White House after the invention of the bomb.

It isn't good.

The story is about a super-weapon, radioactive dust, for which there is no defence, and which can destroy entire populations within weeks, and which can be developed from scratch within 12 weeks, and requires only an airplane to deliver.

How does the U.S. decide to handle the (almost certain) possibility that someone else will develop this weapon? They demand that every nation agree to ground all planes, disarm, and allow the US to manage a new world order. If not, they will have their cities destroyed until they capitulate.

Unfortunately, this seems to be the only realistic alternative, and even more unnerving is that Heinlein predicted the cold war. If the USSR had not developed the bomb as soon as they did, it could have been a completely different world today.

What's worse is how closely some of the events seem to be mirroring what's been happening since September 11.

Maybe it's me, but I've been having this growing creepy feeling since that day. I'm feeling more helpless, more inconsequential, more pessimistic, and not in the face of global terrorism. I'm feeling less trustful of established authorities, of our government, of "our" way of looking at things. I've definitely settled down since my teen years when I would gladly rail against anyone, when I was a bit of an ideological spitfire, but recent events have started to reawaken my desire for change...only, there's a darker tone to my thoughts.

I still feel like we can be better than we are, that we have it within ourselves to grow past our differences, or even to learn to celebrate them. I just feel, more and more, that we aren't even heading in the right direction, more and more that I don't even know what direction we should be heading in. We -can- do it, I'm just not sure that we -will- any more.

Well, I'm only on the 3rd Surah of the Qur'an, so maybe there's some answers in that.

Cheers. ((Editted because I mispelled "Heinlein" a lot. *sigh* ))

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