Okay, so here’s my guilty secret. I like movies where things explode.
Not all movies where things explode. But when Bruce Willis, or someone of his stripe, sets off to save the planet with a quip and a smirk, I enjoy the payoff as much as any backyard commando. Maybe more, since I have no personal illusions about being able to pull off anything remotely qualified to feature in an action flick. When I take action these days it’s usually in the kitchen, or, if I’m lucky, in the garden.
Yet much as I like action movies where things explode and steely-eyed heroes step in and light the match, I recognize these stories as fiction.
Fiction is something I understand. Reality, not so much. Perhaps that’s why it simply blows my mind that there are actually people in the “real” world who think it’s a swell idea for the United States at this point in the progress of the civilized world to build a so-called “Death Star” to protect us from anticipated alien attacks.
And here I thought I was delusional.
Well, it’s possible, I suppose, that the paranoid legions will have the last laugh when the aliens start bombing and scorching us with their death rays, but I feel fairly confident that at the rate we’re killing each other off down here on Earth there won’t be much for aliens to conquer, when and if they ever arrive.
I was comforted to read in The Washington Post today that the Obama administration “does not support blowing up planets.” Good to know.
In the meantime, that estimated $850 quadrillion which the proposed “Death Star” would cost (and you know how it is with estimates – nothing comes in under the estimate) could come in handy as we try to pay down the national debt, solve the problems in our education, health care and aging infrastructure.
And after we end hunger, poverty and injustice, then we can get that Death Star project up and running. Sure we can.
Coming soon to a theatre near you.