I didn't post last night on purpose. Today's entries are meant to go together and I couldn't have them posted on separate days. Instead, I'll have one in the morning and the next in the evening. You guys believe that, right? Good! (Suckers).
Today is actually an important day in the world of history. I'm sure most of you don't need me to tell you...
Oh, what's that? The last time you thought about history was in 10th grade when Mr. Rassmussen, the girl's volleyball coach was reading to you out of a retrograde textbook that still referred to Russia as "The Soviet Union." Oh...
You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?
Today is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In Europe, they still hold Armistice Day (11/11/1918) to be a solemn occasion when all stop to consider the horrors of war, the fragility of peace and the sacrifices necessary to keep it and when I said Pearl Harbor, all of you thought of the movie first, didn't you?
Oh, truly this is Caligula's Rome! No, worse! Even then, as the Romans were wiping their chins after visiting the vomitoriums to go back to eating obscene amounts of food off the asses of their finest prostitutes, they were thinking of the defeat of Hannibal or the mighty triumvirate of Caesar who conquered Gaul.
Ok, maybe not. Still, unless you're binge-eating off the amble bosom of a lady of the night, you have no excuse for not being aware of the import of the day.
In all seriousness, though, take a minute to consider the circumstances: the Nazis had steamrolled most of Europe. The British were on the defensive, hunkered down and praying for something to relieve them of the nightly bombings. Stalin was too busy killing every one of his most qualified generals to bother with an ever-aggressive Germany.
Things were looking pretty grim.
Once the Japanese bombed us, however, the war had begun to end. The hatred and rage it awakened in a country with as much economic and industrial might as the U.S. at the time meant that it was only a matter of time before Germany and Japan were reduced to rubble. With the man-power of Russia and the general might of the U.S., the war was turned around.
Don't get me wrong.
War is a horrible, brutal, desperate practice that makes animals out of otherwise civilized men. But it is sometimes (more often than one might be willing to admit) necessary. I think there is no more sobering reminder of the necessity of war as the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
But Jason, invoking World War Two isn't fair! Most conflicts can be solved with diplomacy! WWII was an exception!
Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, The Joker. That's right. I did it! As Alfred said to Bruce Wayne, "Some men just want to watch the world burn."
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