“In this corner, the Sons of Abraham…”

“And in that corner, also wearing red, also the Sons of Abraham…”

Coincidental to one of my most stressful weeks ever, world events intrude to remind me that my little travails are so inconsequential, I’m a little embarrassed to have bellyached about them at such length online (without actually retracting anything, of course). Sorry about that… till the next time…

Turned on the news as soon as we got home, and in no time at all, I just couldn’t handle what I was seeing from the street in Lebanon. And that’s the sanitized version on US TV (doesn’t pay to piss off the Feds).

So now I’m watching a recording of a U2 concert from Buenos Aires, Argentina, that was broadcast live in that country. They’re doing “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” kind of an anti-massacre anthem, in case you’re unfamiliar with the band’s repertoire. This is performed just after a new song called “Love and Peace Or Else.” Bono’s wearing a headband that reads “co-exist” that manages to incorporate the iconography of the current Big Three world religions; Islam’s crescent, the Star of David and the cross. They’re at the “No More” chorus now, and some fetching audience member has been pulled up to join Bono on the mic. It’s all very touching and well-intentioned, but in light of recent events, it just seems hopelessly naïve.

Here’s what I think: Bono’s goal of reducing third world debt and combating AIDS in Africa is insanely ambitious, but at least in some measure doable. It’s not counter to human nature to want to help other people. One of the things people like to do to each other is help them. Sometimes it makes us feel good about ourselves to help others; a selfish motive doesn't negate the positive effects of good works.

But his appeal for co-existence flies in the face of the whole of human history, and is too big a challenge even for Moses, Mohammed and Jesus put together.

Because when you put them together, all hell breaks loose.

I was talking to my Mom today. She’s been an Apocalyptic Christian since, I think, the 70s. How well I remember her warning my brother who lives in Chicago that he had to get out by such & such a date because a prophet on the 700 Club had predicted that a tidal wave was going to wipe that city out. Never mind that’s in a tectonically stable region and on a lake, not an ocean… She’s been living this craziness for decades now, with one deadline for rapture passing after another.

The thing is, she’s not looking so crazy these days.

I was just at a big conference with a ton of people – young, savvy, motivated people – and I ended up sitting next to this dude who looked like Jesus. He let me take a picture for my Mom. He even posed in a classical Jesus pose. He was an awfully good sport, and we got to talking about blogger communities. The Missus was a medium-bigwig at this conference; I’m a nobody, which opinion this well-intentioned guy tried really hard to talk me out of. And I tried to explain to him (without being too big a dick) that I preferred to remain a nobody, unaffiliated, because I didn’t trust people in groups.

Because once people form themselves into communities, the communities inevitably end up splitting into cliques, which break into cells, which ultimately begin warring against each other, even it’s just flaming each other’s blogs with hate mail; couch potato terrorism. It’s human nature to identify an Other Guy, then go after him tooth and nail.

Even the most End Time-believing Bible-thumper will tell you that the third human being God put on planet earth killed the fourth one. You can blame me for not wanting to join up with like-minded fellows?

All this horror and escalating momentum in the Middle East scares the living bejeezus out of me. Good God, what kind of world have I brought my Man Cub into? A world where once again, American bombs are being dropped by allies on overwhelmingly civilian targets. A world where the Bad Guys hide among the civilian targets, hoping enough of their innocent countrymen will get horribly murdered as to swing popular opinion their way. Where human lives are expended more causally than Monopoly money.

And I think that’s my point. It’s in mankind’s nature to kill each other. It has been since forever. We’re meat-eaters, for crying out loud. Every meal we have requires the sacrifice of a formerly-living thing and only the “whackos” go off about it. If you think early man’s meat-eating habits didn’t include the guy in the cave next door, you’re kidding yourself.

People like to kill people. They just don’t give a fuck – some are so twisted up with rage and hatred they will literally kill themselves to take a couple of the other guys along with them. That’s some serious will to kill.

And as long as people like to kill so goddamn much and our weapons get more lethal and more prolific, we’re going to see the carnage get exponentially worse and worse. Wait till they kill an American network anchor in Baghdad or Fallujah or Buttrump, Iraq. Oh, will that be a high-rated television extravaganza! I’m sure the network execs already have a Dead Pool amongst themselves.

I am loathe to agree with the punditry, but I can absolutely see this spiraling out of control so badly that everybody is drawn in, and we really are staring down the barrel of World War III. With a professed Apocalyptic Christian at the helm of the United States’ arsenal and decision-making process, no less.

And in that war, no one is safe. Not in Israel, not in Lebanon, not in Iraq or Syria or Iran; not in America. Not even the babies.

What in God’s name is a father supposed to do???