Impending doom
I can't get past the feeling that today begins the last week of our lives, or something. It might be because I was only 22 and working in sports at the time, but I don't remember the buildup in 1990-91 to Persian Gulf I being quite this excruciating, or lengthy, or fraught with visions of homeland hell. Of course, at the time, we could still say, "what, you think a bunch of whacked-out Arabs could simultaneously hijack four airplanes and crash two of them into the tallest buildings in the nation and less than 30 minutes later slam one into the Pentagon? You watch too many Schwarzenegger movies, dude."

Yeah, those were the days.

March 17. That's a week from today. My kid's spring break starts that day. Good chance I'm going to be with her for none of it, if the president and his henchmen have their way. Of course, 300,000 of us are facing a far worse March 17 than am I, being that they're going to be in the same time zone as Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction.

I guess I should clarify my position on the whole war thing. I know I've been going back and forth. A quick run through the archives reveals I've been going back and forth since August. So, for what it's worth (and considering it's my forum, it's worth whatever I decide it is), here's where I stand:

I fully believe Saddam Hussein and Iraq is in possession of some quantity of chemical weapons -- just like pretty much every other developed nation on the planet.

I fully believe Saddam Hussein is an evil leader who does awful things to people in his country who disagree with him.

I fully believe Iraq has violated the provisions of every UN resolution since 1991.

I fully believe the world would be a better place if Saddam Hussein was, well, dead; or failing that, in a heavily guarded retirement home somewhere in the United Arab Emirates.

I fully believe Saddam Hussein poses no imminent threat to me or mine or the United States in general. I believe Iraq is our punching bag (see Bombing, effort to distract from impeachment by, 1998). I believe when somebody pisses us off, we go beat up on Iraq to make ourselves feel better.

I believe my family and I face a greater threat from North Korea and its well-known nuclear program. I believe my family and I face a greater threat from whatever remains of al-Evildoer. I'm starting to believe my family and I face a greater threat from our own leaders.

I understand this: Sometimes you have to stir up the hornets' nest in order to eliminate the danger posed by the hornets. I'm not ready to carry a sign and chant peace slogans. For what my support is worth, I fully support the folks whose job it is to go over and take care of this thing.

But we're a week away from wall-to-wall CNN, and I'm still pretty sure war is a bad idea.

The fence on which I'm standing is pretty long. I hope it's wide enough for me.