Monday, August 07, 2006

Mutually Assured Drunk Driving

Maybe it's exhaustion from grading end of term tests and papers (terms here run April-July, October-January). Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's a 'dog days' combination of the two. I dunno. I've started several interesting, informative and insightful (heh) articles on various topics related to Japan but, for now at least, they're languishing as 'drafts'. I don't have the mental energy right now to do a proper job on them (and I'm working a deadline to finish a presentation I have to give next week). Sunday was the 61st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and I had planned to write something about it. I guess it'll wait until next year... While researching said article, however, I came upon a rather amusing quote.
In an article attempting to justify American use of the atomic bomb, the writer refers to Japan's attempt to make atomic bombs during the war, and then makes the following rather comical comment:
Had we [the US] tried the invasion route, it is entirely possible that Japan might have been able to complete a bomb and use it on us. MADD would not have sufficed to prevent it because Japan had absolutely nothing to loose by using it.
[I haven't altered this quote, and if you check the link, you'll see that there's an 'editorial' note informing us that the article was originally posted to the site one year ago...]

Now, clearly Mothers Against Drunk Driving could not have prevented the Japanese from loosing their atomic bombs. But they didn't have any, so yes, "Japan had absolutely nothing to loose". (Right about now I feel like my brain is turning into a Moebius strip.) In fact, MADD, as an organization, didn't even exist that long ago (although it must be granted that an early form of MAD did).
So, clearly, Japan had everything to lose by having nothing to loose, and America was the winner because it was the looser. And that's the story of Hiroshima...

2 comments:

  1. Hi,
    in times of war, everyone's a big huge stinky loser.

    Was the MADD part a typo? Sorry i am slow...awww..i wish momz had that typa power...spank the war mongers or give them time out:)

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  2. Hi Maliha,
    Yeah, he wrote MADD when he should have written MAD, and "loose" instead of "lose". I don't usually waste time picking on spelling/grammar mistakes, but I thought it was a funny sentence and I had nothing better to write about!

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