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| Source: Autodesk Instructables |
Senator Mark Kelly: "He runs around on stage talking about 'lethality,' warrior ethos, and 'killing people'... that’s not the message that should be coming from the Secretary of Defense… And instead he runs around on a stage like he’s a 12 year old playing army." —Yahoo!News, December 2, 2025
Before computer games, we each chose
a sheaf of white paper, scoring it with lines
going this way and that, and assigned letters
and numbers so each square would be, for
example, B1 or D2, and then we specified
where our boats hung out, be they cruiser,
submarine, destroyer, carrier or battleship.
You only called out one square at a time
and one hit could not sink a ship.
There were no sailors on these ships,
the losses not serious, the arsenal only
pen marks on a grid. But armed with a
computer now the tempo rises, especially
when it's the War Department striking
in the Caribbean, no marimba music or
swaying palms, a techno-hit in a made-up
war can end the game, but if survivors cling
to the side, no need to ask mother's permission,
we double-tap and send them on their way.
Sharon Olson is a retired librarian and native Californian who now lives in Annapolis, Maryland. Her book The Long Night of Flying was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2006. Her second book Will There Be Music? was published by Cherry Grove Collections in 2019.
