PINE NUTS: Hands Off That Autonomous Weapon!

Isn’t it too bad that we are clever enough to create a weapon so powerful as to deter our enemies, then we have to start knocking off our enemies before they replicate that same weapon, and knock us off…

Where does it all end? May I humbly suggest Drawing Down Weapons of Mass Destruction until our world is free from the threat of devastation by our own hand. And let us start tomorrow, before an accident metastasizes, and it’s “Bye-Bye-Baby!”

I carry my last words around with me just in case I can’t remember what I want to say should the time come…“Thanks, Mom!”

Presently, we find ourselves awaiting a call for brotherhood, followed by a wave of harmony to unite the human race. The time is upon us when good folks can no longer afford to remain silent…

President Teddy Roosevelt wrote to a friend in 1897: “In strict confidence…I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one.”

Yes, and he said that back in the slow-moving days when warfare was still confined, for the most part, to the battlefield.

Are we too self-centered to call for brotherhood? If so, the last words ever heard here on Earth just might be, “Hands Off that autonomous weapon!”

Yesterday a black gentleman with a saxophone reached out to me and asked, “May we play you a song?”

“Of course,” I respond, “I’d be honored.”

An Asian lady sang along, and they played the sweetest music…

“There is still a chance that they will see…There will be an answer, let it be…”

When the music stopped I hugged them both. They invited me to join them for tea and the three of us walked arm in arm to the teahouse. They told me they knew I wrote a column for this noble journal and asked if I might comment on some current events of the day.

I abjured that there were many folks better qualified to comment on current events, but I might like to offer one little adjunct to complement their noble rendition of “Let It Be.”

Let us ask our 195 nations of the world to remember today what Benjamin Franklin quipped during the signing of the Declaration of Independence two hundred and fifty years ago.”

"We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Old Ben was not above using double entendres as a declaration of self-preservation in defiance of possible peril. We can all learn from Old Ben…

Once inside the teahouse my new friends struck up a 1985 song by USA for Africa, and we all joined in with the lyrics…

“There comes a time, when we heed a certain call, when the world must come together as one.”

It’s a powerful piece of music, a piece of music that could rightfully become a 2026 anthem for all nations of the world, in welcoming a peaceful dawn…

In closing, there will come a time, when we heed a certain call, when the world must come together as one. That time is now…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO