At the time of this greetings’ composing, Pharaoh is hospitalized with the plague. I’m not gloating although much could be included about karma. This neo-exodus reap-what-you-sow October surprise event should put us on the alert. Not just to be masked and vigilant aboutthe ubiquitous COVID-19,but also about nuclear weaponry and its custody, possession and proliferation. Felice and Jack provided me with a statement by doctors who are part of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985, and cofounders of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. They assert that as the virus health crisis is depleting resources and exhausting medical staff first responders, just one nuclear exchange, say between Pakistan and India, in a time of food and economic insecurity, not only would kill millions in the first moment, but the eventual spread of dust and ash would darken the skies and plunge the world into a nuclear ice age.

         If not directly hit, the inevitable ecological economic consequences would be more than catastrophic. We know the difference between a pandemic and nuclear exchange. We have the means to stop the latter. But before we get too carried away with slogans, let’s go back to what Phil Berrigan called the Blight House. There is a lesson. The hubris that the inner sanctum would be secure has been exposed as delusion. The inner sanctum has been penetrated by a microbe. The wake up we need is to have the reliance on deterrence equally disillusioned like the so-called security no longer enjoyed by the Oval Office. If there is no absolute security for preventing COVID in a place like the Blight House then likewise, after 75 years and trillions of dollars, we have not provided any nuclear security.