Cliff, I believe that Negroponte knows full well that a nuclear Iran would be disastrous. He is informed to the gills, and his judgment is solid. I believe he thinks that this train is unstoppable, or at least that those who may be in a position to stop it, won’t.
Many readers wrote in comments such as this one: “I don’t think people are bored [by the subject of a nuclear Iran]; I think they feel helpless.”
And this: “I think you’re seeing a defensive reaction. I liken it a bit to a family of abusers (dad, uncle, etc.). Pretty soon, the family just stops talking about it, because it’s just too painful.”
More: “Americans don’t want to go to war with Iran, so we just don’t face the issue, hoping it will go away.”
Another e-mail: “I think perhaps we’ve been blessed with the luxury of growing up in a safe America, raised on Walt Disney happy endings, so it’s especially hard to believe such an evil truly exists. Instead, unbelievably, we are asked to prepare against the threat of plastic bags, Happy Meal toys, and light bulbs.”
Ah, yes: environmental activism as a way to avoid real dangers.
In that post of mine, I said, “People were more interested in what I had to say about unusual names in baseball [than in news about the coming Iranian A-bomb]. (Mookie Wilson is a classic, though not as classic as Hack Wilson. Pudd’nhead Wilson didn’t play ball.)”
Now, this is NOT an invitation to reopen the subject of unusual baseball names, or sports names. I did this for months, one year — it is wonderful, but never-ending. BUT: I will print just one e-mail. Here ya go: “My all-time favorite pitching matchup occurred in an A’s-Twins game, played in Bloomington, Minn. The year was 1965. The matchup was Catfish Hunter against Mudcat Grant.”
Excellent.