You know, it doesn’t seem like it was that many years ago that the threat of nuclear war was not a big fear anymore. The world lived with the threat for many years throughout the length of the cold war. I remember in the 80’s, it was kind of all over everything. It was the theme of music, movies, television shows…I even remember an episode of Silver Spoons where Ricky had a dream that he was the president and he got in an argument with the Soviet Union and they launched missiles at us and he had to decide whether or not to launch our missiles in retaliation. In the end, I think he launched them…but then things seemed to warm up between the US and the Soviet Union and the fear subsided. I can’t be too sure about the rest of the world, but it seemed that in the US, we weren’t as worried about it anymore…until now. India and Pakistan. North Korea. The Middle East. All these hotbeds of possible nuclear destruction, with not a small amount of it being aimed at the US. Not to mention the fact that I’m certain we have our own weapons. The idea of complete annhialation seems so far away and ridiculous, and yet if things get bad enough, it’s a very real possibility. It makes you wonder if, now that these weapons have been brought into existence, will we always have to live with this? Whenever relations get ugly between two nations, is the N word (Nuke I mean) going to get tossed around? Are we basically doomed to this paranoia now that the cat is out of the lead lined bag?