Nuclear madness? What’s the password?

A mere couple of weeks ago, in this very column, I warned that Russia was on the verge of going bonkers, and that its tidy stash of strategic nukes was going to become a real issue.

Well…they are (going bonkers) And it is (a real issue).

Told ya’ so. Maybe that green flash we look for at Oleai Beach will someday be accompanied by a very loud “boom” (and I’m not referring to Cantankerous Jerry’s booming voice as he corners me to pay off my tab).

Nerves were shaken, not stirred, last week when President “Gimme a Vodka” Yeltsin made this remark at a press event of China: “Bill Clinton permitted himself to forget…that Russia has a complete arsenal of nuclear weapons.”

Diplomatic nastiness surrounded the issue, as Russia accused a U.S. government employee stationed over there of spying and Uncle Sam accused a Russian government employee in the U.S. of spying. Tit-for-tat, diplomatic schoolyard “neener neener neeeeener.”

The Commonwealth has not appointed a blue ribbon committee to look into the matter (not yet, anyway), but I’d like to know if we’re on the target list in case the cynical psychopaths who run the world–or perhaps a couple of rogue captains in some grim missile silo in Siberia–start pushing buttons.

Face it: any epoch in which people talk in sterile terms of the wonders of “MAD” (Mutually Assured Destruction,” and I’m not kidding you) is not to be trusted.

Technology has outpaced human wisdom (it probably did so when the first rock was invented). Worse yet, the guys running things are all warped in the head. Most human history is the story of masses of idiots and the hand full of power-hungry madmen who boss them around. Modern times are sure no exception.

If these two elements would simply blot each other out, the rest of us would be a lot better for it. But there’s a malignant social symbiosis at issue. The masses of idiots need the madmen, the madmen need the idiots…and they somehow manage to drag the rest of us into it.

If the world wants to saute itself with nuclear saber rattling, I hope it leaves me out of it. But if the green flash at Happy Hour appears a bit too bright one evening, I’ll be relocating to a fortified cave in Marpi.

I’ve got three cans of Dinty Moore stew stashed away plus a bag of Korean snack food enigmatically labeled “Characteristic of Sweet Potato.” So I figure I’m pretty well provisioned.

Meanwhile, my plans for a clandestine restoration of the Last Command Post artillery are progressing nicely. The perimeter has been thoroughly reconnoitered, and my fields of fire have been staked out in detail…

…oh, and Jerry…about that tab…come see me in Marpi. We’ll talk then. Just keep your hands up and make sure you know the password.