My Generation's Rodent-Catcher

Ah, one Super Bowl down. Salty snacks consumed, victors declared, predictions disproven. A fun day, and what a perfect ending it is to sit down to my favorite daily dose of pseudo-intellectualism to read that we're restarting development of nuclear warheads. Ah, a tranquil slumber I shall have tonig--

Wait. What?!

Faded legends are a sorry sight. And it would seem that we've become the elementary school bully in his first year at high school. The other bully has transferred to another school/broken up into a loosely-affiliated commonwealth of independent states (here my metaphor breaks down, just like the USSR did), and he's no longer feared/respected. Instead, he tries to show to anyone who will listen (fewer and fewer each day) that he still has it: he can still punch harder and taunt higher. But instead of doing the sensible thing and try to play along with everyone else in the schoolyard, he decides to get into a race with himself.

That's right, we're making sure we're able to respond to the threats of the 21st century with the weapons of the 20th. No longer will recent foes like "insurgents" or "Sudanese instigators of acts of horrific genocide" or "Large masses of water moving at high speed towards unsuspecting shores" attempt to threaten us in the realm of nuclear superiority.

The really amazing thing about the NYTimes article, though, is the opposition it presents. After explaining that the thrust of this program was to step back from designing sleek, sexy bombs capable of ending millions of lives to constructing stoic, sturdy instruments of mass tragedy, the Times quotes as a critic Dr. P. Leonardo Mascheroni, whose complaint is that the program... costs too much. Instead, he thinks that we should make "lighter, robust [harbingers of death and destruction]."

Now, you might think that I, as a member of The Enfranchised, should be happy about support for nuclear weapons, which are essentially a jobs program for physicists, bureaucrats, and other traditionally-white-and-male eggheads. Shouldn't I want people of my background to strike pay dirt? But I'm not just white and male, I'm ambitious. Companies already exist that want to fight over this meager pie.

Men of my sort have always had a Klondike. In the 19th Century, it was Gold or the Railroad. In the 50's, it was Nuclear Weapons (hence the staked claim). In the 60's: plastics. In the 80's: we made money selling money. That's right. You give us money, we'll invest it, and eventually give you more. S&L scandal: the genius that only an oppressive majority could create. In the early 90's we made our fortunes as expats, selling democracy. And since then, computers. Cyber this and eThat. But mark my words: computers are a dying fad, and I want to know, what next? Will we start cowering at "Big Solar" or fearing legislation written by the Pastry Lobby?

Somebody once said, "Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." The meaning of my recounting this quote should be obvious: maybe, just maybe, the lucrative trend of this decade will be aphorisms, false advice, and greeting cards.