SAINTS PRESERVE US

A Bullet Dodged

BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

I have to say I prefer my emergency alerts more benign in nature, EXTREME COLD for instance. I’m thinking that if Ann and I had been back on Maui yesterday, we would’ve grabbed some chairs, beer and cigarettes and gone to the beach, held hands and watched the fireworks. Nuclear Armageddon, a ruined holiday; tell me, what else would we do? Make love.

Though the advance warning of the apocalypse was no drill, it was a mistake. A simple human error transmitted to every digital device in the state. Given the tensions between a fading empire overseen by a “dotard” and a failed state under the inherited heel of a “little Rocket Man,” its timing could not have been more exquisite. We are cursed with interesting times dominated by plump, unstable individuals and the idea of an unprovoked missile attack is no preposterous Pentagon thought experiment.

“It’s not a mere threat, but a reality that I have a nuclear button on the desk in my office. All of the mainland United States is within range of our nuclear strike.”

“I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

Aloha! Hang loose! Panic! The Cuban Missile Crisis cranked up to a Spinal Tap 11. Hawaiians and their tourist guests on Saturday lived an absurd alternate reality, sort of a conflated conflagration of Dr. Strangelove and On the Beach for 18 minutes. Meanwhile Tweeterdumbest kept playing golf because Hawaii is a blue state. Knowledgeable Republicans were quick to lay the blame for the emergency fiasco at the feet of former presidents Clinton and Obama because those men were soft on an insignificant point along the “axis of evil.” Of course.

One miracle is that the inadvertent incident did not escalate beyond embarrassment. Perhaps golf isn’t such an idiotic game after all. Still, I wonder about the ultimate fate of a world hackled by the machinery of war. Just how reliable are the systems and their operators? I’ve no desire to be incinerated because somebody else was having a bad day; wasn’t paying attention. Procedures and protocols are easily circumvented, just read the business, politics and sports sections of the morning paper.

I suspect the other miracles born of this latest brush with insanity will be delivered happy, healthy and innocent about mid-September.