I'll bet you five bucks you'd react differently than you think you would, once your doctor tells you that you've got lung cancer. And that it's been using your body as a combination playground and nursery for four years. Or that it's possible you might not be here this same time next year.
No, wait -- scratch that idea. The only way I could collect on such a bet would be for your doctor to actually break that same news to you, and I wouldn't wish that pronouncement on anyone -- not even on lower life forms like brain-damaged Teabaggers, deluded Ayn Rand supporters, those struggling with the selfish demons of religion, or any other member of the helpless, hopeless, and hoodwinked.
Believe me when I say that the news, when it breaks, is filled with puzzling, aqueous cartoon moments involving stopped time, suspension of gravity, and immersion into a sluggish, slow-motion world usually reserved for filmmakers' shorthand, where someone's ambushed drug state, psychotic episode spike, or some other sudden lapse from reality is conveyed.
Yes, when this sort of news breaks, it breaks right over your head like a two-by-four wielded by a rampaging Hecules, with an extra assist by Zeus: You'll never see it coming, you'll never feel a thing. If anything, you might be left wondering how it is all those splinters of wood wound up in your hair. Or why it is your head feels so tall on your neck -- like one of the old Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots whose block was knocked off.
On Monday, August 6, 1945, after six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities,...
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