Adios “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” hello folly

 

 
  
Another legend turns 65.  On August 9, 1945, the second of two experimental party-poopers dropped in on the city of Nagasaki and pootered in Emperor Hirohito’s chicken teriyaki.

 

America recruited two A-bombs to sell Japan the wisdom of surrender.  Three days earlier "Little Boy" made a 15-kiloton presentation in Hiroshima.  Up next came "Fat Man" who came in and closed the deal.  Six days later the Emperor gave up and America got ink.

 

Little Boy and Fat Man received mixed reviews.  They ended the war, yet opened the hatch for a culture of dubious merit.  The next 50 years witnessed Godzilla and a host of other uranium-enriched mutants, alien abductions, Area 51, conspiracy theories, Dr. Strangeglove,  paranormal paranoia, the Cold War, grade-B sci-fi movies, and climate change, for all we know.

 

And during the next 5 decades the world endured the threat of mutually-assured destruction, code-named for a nuclear Armageddon capable of reducing both hemispheres to molten lava.  Then the villainous Russky empire imploded in the 1990's.  It was good-bye to global hand-wringing.

 

Then, 65 years after the atomic debut, as if with memories of a blank slate, US leaders would commit to a deal to reduce its nuclear bandalero – a strategic move designed to guarantee global tranquility by making it safe for despots like Madmood I’m-a-dippy-jerk to have his own chemistry set and play with it too.

 

America's new leaders, the Borbons in wingtips – they learn nothing, forget nothing.  Adios Little Boy and Fat Man.  Hello folly.