Tomorrow

Tomorrow is Monday, finally, thank goodness. I don’t like weekends, Saturdays and Sundays, as not much of anything happens, at least according to the MSM. It’s like the world shuts down for the weekends and then begins again on Mondays. But does it really?

…
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing. — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene

I find it incredible that Shakespeare could have written this description of U.S. politics so far in advance. He must have been psychic. But isn’t it an almost perfect description of what is going on at the moment in our Congress? Nothing much happens, the pace creeps on, we are still dealing with yesterday’s foolishness (as well as today’s), McCain and Graham and Cruz (and others) strut and fret their hours on the television stage soon to be left behind, their idiotic tales full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (except their personal animosity towards a perfectly qualified candidate). Shakespeare was indeed a genius, as it were, having his hand on a future situation he could not even have imagined. Oh something will eventually happen, when Congress gets back from their vacation they will eventually vote for Secretary of Defense and turn their attention to what else they can do to keep us from making any progress on the many problems that face us. They will no doubt continue to concentrate their efforts on trying to make President Obama fail at all things. I guess they will never admit, however begrudgingly, that for a Black man Obama has been remarkably successful as President in spite of all their blatant efforts to thwart him at every turn. I like to imagine how much better things would be if Al Gore had not been cheated out of the Presidency, or how much better they would be if Republicans had not chosen their strange form of quasi- treason rather than cooperate for the sake of our nation. It almost makes me wish there was some kind of supernatural being that punished greed and stupidity.

Of course it is true the world is changing, even more rapidly than ever before, and apparently not always for the best. As one example I like to think of Will Rogers:  “You can't say that civilization  don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.”And then I think of Kipling:  

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

 A new medal has just been commissioned, to be given to those fine warriors who man the drones, thousands of miles from their killings. Sitting in chairs at computers (sipping tea and eating crumpets?) while “fighting,” that is, engaged in something that used to be called “battles” is indeed quite a change. I guess we might describe this as “The War of the Nerds.” This is something that never should have been started and may well result in the end of “wars” forever, along with the short-sighted species that invented it, what an absolutely stupid idea, destroying the “romance” of war.

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

Rick Cook,