The Coming Doom Part I

The Wake Up Call


There is this swelling sentiment in America that we almost need a little Armageddon times – just to prove Armageddon times are really coming. There are a few variations, but they all contain the phrase “Wake Up”. As in: we need to “wake up” to the coming doom. The specific peril itself is usually terrorism, but it can also be economic ruin, political collapse, race war, something vague about Mexico. Bird flu is in there occasionally.

My favorite variation is what I have come to call the Dirty Martini Bomb…

This is when you give an otherwise reasonable, sane wealthy white American man two Martinis and let the conversation drift towards politics. This eventually slips out: “Well, We need another attack to wake us up.” Or, as Rumsfeld was quoted just last week:

“This President's pretty much a victim of success….The correction.., I suppose, is an attack."

Yes Professor, I think a modest dose of terror just now would do wonders for us.

I’ve personally heard at least four millionaires ape this same line after a martini or two in the past six months. Always Martinis and always a dirty nuke. It is tempting righteousness, but it just doesn’t pass this Ex-Cowboy’s offal-detector.

You wanna talk Armageddon times? Let’s go back to our roots, and our religious lore. Let’s talk floods Jed. Whatever tribulating doom-blast you favor is easy to prepare for. Just replace the word “flood” below, with your disaster of choice, and you will be among those who survive to re-populate a more righteous democratic utopia.

America might not need anything really, but if we do it is something like a “Go Right Now Bag” for the soul. This is what should be in it:

• A Prescribed Dose of reality, Jack. The Dirty Martini Bomb premise is as brain-fouled as you could ever hope to become, and still have a college degree. I mean think about it: Do we need another flood to prepare us for the next big flood?

• A sense of driving hope and optimism that life has enough value to justify half an hour a year to awkwardly discuss with your family and plan realistic options for the flood that will probably never happen. Teach your kids the science of weather, so they know what a flood is. (And plan on the phones not working at all.)

• Swimming Lessons. Seriously, you live in New Orleans? It’s sixteen feet below sea level, the ocean is rising, and you don’t know how to swim? Your Armageddon experience will be easier on you and your overworked rescuers if you spend a few hours a week shaping up your body and getting some basic awareness of the surroundings you will be hunkered in. Nobody shot their way through their roof after New Orleans: Sell the pistol - buy an axe.

• A Hero Story. Ex-cowboy grandfather-in-law was everything good about an American man, in one shirt. He dammed a western river, shot it out with cowboys, even played minor league ball with Jackie Robinson. He was elected sheriff and got a killer to surrender, confess and ask him to walk him to the chair. (I never knew of him to drink a martini.) He often said; “you can tell a hero story or you can tell a victim story.” Are you a millionaire who worries about the coming flood? Maybe you could put something else where your mouth is. Some carefully thought-out advertising for flood awareness might help more than a "wake-up" flood. Look what that skinny bicycle guy did for cancer...

• Love for thy Neighbor. Seriously now, who are you going to shoot with that pistol? An anonymous black man who manages to swim from fifty blocks away, or the gangly Shimfield boy whose parents never made it home from work? Put the things on this list in your “go “ bag and then make sure the neighbors see it as often as possible. Don't talk small about big things - act big about small ones. Can you cook for the neighborhood, perform emergency medicine, build a shelter from busted stuff, or grow food in a hurry? Any two of these skills will get you appointed the first new mayor rubbleville. That pistol will only make you the lonely dictator of your own attic.

This ran long, so I’ll break it up. Stay tuned for another way to think about how bad it could get before it’s as bad as it could get….


Thanks for playing

The (Ex) Cowboy
www.blogspot.blogofacowboy.com