Sunday, November 08, 2009

I Have Skills

Don't look at the timestamp on this post. Tomorrow (today?) is going to be absolutely miserable. So much for getting to bed earlier. I'm getting later by the day. And this post totally ended up all stream-of-conscious, which I guess is to be expected, given the time.

My kids had wanted to go to Crap-Mart Wal-Mart to waste spend their allowance, and I decided that if they had the Napoleon Dynamite DVD for under $10, I would buy it. They did have it, for $9. But then I had the brilliant idea of buying 2 workout DVDs too. Remember how I said I have had my Netflix DVDs sitting on my shelf for ELEVEN MONTHS? I finally bit the bullet and bought the 30-Day Shred and a TaeBo workout so that I could finally send those stupid DVDs back guilt free. So I spent $30 on DVDs, which is a big splurge for me, and really not what I should be spending my money on right now. But at least Netflix and I are back together again.

However, I realized I have failed my kids. The front of the Napoleon Dynamite DVD case says 'Vote for Pedro'. OldestSon looked at it and said "Who is Pedro?" I couldn't believe he didn't know. Obviously I've failed them -- they should have Napoleon Dynamite memorized. Actually, that's the exact reason I haven't bought it until now. There are way too many names in the movie that I knew my kids would pick up on if they watched it a lot. Like "Tina, you fat lard" for instance. So it might have to remain an 'adult' movie.

Can you tell I'm writing this at 3:30 am?

Oh yeah, the main purpose of this post. Earlier, my kids watched Pearl Harbor (which also has a whole slew of fun words for them to copy). I've read reviews that said it is a terrible movie, but I love it. It has Ben Affleck for one thing. And Kate Beckinsale. And the Goose guy is really funny. It really hits me emotionally too. I thought it was very well done and captured some of the emotion you feel when thinking of our soldiers being attacked. But then I thought of the atomic bombs. I showed OldestSon some pictures of what Hiroshima and Nagasaki and some of the survivors looked like after the atomic bombs. Sitting there thinking, I just couldn't believe that humans have used nuclear weapons against other humans. It really is incomprehensible. 220,000 or more people, mostly civilians, died. That number is also incomprehensible to me. That's like half the people in my metropolitan area dying. And to think of the effects of radiation sickness? I don't even want to go there. I've studied that some in the past (like in high school), and I didn't even look it up today.

I was thinking that I'd like to study World War II and Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombs in a lot more detail. Then I thought, no, I really don't want to study that. I don't want to understand where they were coming from. I don't want to understand why all the countries involved thought they had to kill thousands or millions of people. I read on Wikipedia that US and Japanese officials both still agree that the atomic bombs were necessary. Some say that if the atomic bombs hadn't been used, Japan would have been invaded, which would have caused greater loss of life. I have no idea what's true. The whole idea of war is just ridiculous. We really think that whichever side kills the most people or causes the most damage is the winner? Again - it's almost incomprehensible. I get that we need to defend freedom, but I wonder how often wars are truly fought for freedom. How much more often is it for monetary gain by the ones in power? I don't think we can ever know what they were thinking until we die. So, yeah, I'd like to study these wars and see what all the reasons were. But on the other hand, I don't even want to know what kind of things go through our leaders' heads when they decide to bomb and kill for what they feel is the greater good.

Oh yeah (again) -- the reason I titled this post as I did is because when I was reading about the atomic bombs, I came across a sweet publication called Nuclear War Survival Skills. Sounds like a must read to me! The word 'skills' in the title got me thinking of Napoleon Dynamite, which is why I related that story first.

4 comments:

Ramon said...

Katie, I'm not sure you are aware of the atrocities that happened prior to the dropping of the atomic bomb. The United States would fire bomb Japan and since the cities weren't constructed of concrete like now, the wood would just add to the inferno caused by the bombs. Stories are told of hurricane force winds that would pick people up in the streets and pull them into the fire as they tried to escape. I'm not trying to be negative here but point out at that using the atomic bomb wasn't so bad, we had killed more Japanese in a single fire bombing attack than with the use of atomic weapons. I personally am opposed to the use of nuclear weapons and wish they didn't exist, but sometimes it is a weapon that keeps the peace in our day and age.

Katie said...

I read a little bit about other bombings prior to the atomic bomb, but you're right, I didn't know the details.

Wisely Chosen said...

I suggest reading everything you can on Hiroshima. Read about Vietnam, too. Years ago I spent months reading everything I could find in the public library system on these subjects. Also watched every video I could find. I'm really glad I did. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island are also helpful subjects to study.

Katie said...

The list of things I'd like to learn and study is miles long :-) These subjects are on there!