Sorry for the mood today. It’s cold and rainy outside and I’ve lost my faith in humanity. Just another day at the O’Brien household.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I have kids now and my priorities have changed, but I find myself more and more disturbed by wars, conflicts, and terrorism and general acts of violence.

Just this past week Israel and Palestine have tried to kill everyone in sight, Andrea Yates was convicted of killing her kids to “save” them from her bad mothering and it’s been discovered that the US is thinking about using small, tactical nuclear weapons (or “cute nukes”) in some arenas of war.

Back up the pumpkin Cinderella. What? What the hell is going on? Have we all lost our minds? What’s going on around here? Can we not inhabit this small blue-green orb without choking it, and ourselves, to death? Is it impossible to inhabit the same space as other human beings without having some sort of bloodthirsty, murderous intent?

I grew up in the midst of a world that was terrified by MAD, or mutually assured destruction. This was the grand idea that kept us and other countries from using nuclear weapons. Doing so would essentially be a murder-suicide pact.

Though it was cold comfort, we could at least rest assured that we could assume that there was no nation on the Earth that was that stupid, arrogant or insane. (Granted, history has proven that there are governments out there who are stupid, arrogant and insane.)

In sixth grade, I would lay awake at night terrified. Not by bullies. Not by adolescent torture, but of waking up one morning, seeing a flash and watching my loved ones melt. Worse yet, I’d have visions of a post-apocalyptic world where every day was an excruciating exercise in radiation poisoning. The world would kill us one by one.

But we’d still have cockroaches and Keith Richards.

Now, in a world where a few men with ordinary household objects, rental trucks and innocent bystanders, can cause death and destruction my own country is considering the possible use of the most destructive force on the planet.

Nuclear bombs are the bomb that keeps on bombing.

These new “cute nukes” are low yield bombs. The radiation and explosion is only a fraction of the old school nuclear weapons. They can, I am told, reduce collateral damage.

Collateral damage, for those of you not playing modern warfare at home, is the new way of saying, “whoops, people were killed while they were buying bananas at the market.” It’s the nice way for any country, faction or rebel group to say they killed the wrong people.

But even cute nukes contain radiation. They will poison the bombsite for generations. Taint the air, the water, and the soil. Children will grow up sick, or worse because of these tactical weapons. Generations after whatever conflict caused the use of a nuclear weapon is over, people who weren’t involved will still be paying the price for the sins of their forefathers.

Right now the government is going after a lead smelter in Missouri that managed to poison not only the soil of a small town, but all the houses in the vicinity. There are children in that town who are growing up with lead poisoning. A problem we should have corrected decades ago when we figured out lead was dangerous.

However, a small radioactive site can kill more brain cells than Budweiser at a WWF event. And trust me, Budweiser REALLY has to look for those brain cells.

Even worse still, is that at least I can count on the US not to use the cute nukes because a Canadian crossed the border into Wisconsin or threw up at Niagara Falls. But can the same be said of India? Pakistan? Iraq? North Korea? I don’t know?

I just don’t understand. Why are humans like this? Why can’t we be like monkeys? You make me mad, I throw my feces at you. Look, the world is trying to kill us as it is. If the Earth doesn’t shake violently and swallow you, spew molten rock on your home or blow your roof off with tornado, consider yourself lucky. We don’t need to help nature. Biology does a fine job at finding a way to end human life. Do we really need to give it any help?

I look around me everyday and see these wonderful reasons to live. My children. Full of wonder and a joy for knowledge, they are the future of our world. Let’s hope that somewhere, there are other rational people looking at their children with the same wonder.

And when they’re old enough I’m going to sit them down and say, “Honey, I’m so sorry. We didn’t mean to make this mess. We were just too mean and stupid to figure out what we were doing in time. But now’s your chance. Make the world a better place. We tried, but all we came up with was ‘Nsync and the Ronco Food Dehydrator. Neither came in handy in the end. Use your curiosity and generosity and figure out where we went wrong.”