More "This and That"

I really ought to stop going to bed with the wireless headphones and the TV remote. I nod off watching something, and then I wake up hours later, usually in the middle of the night, with some horror movie's depiction of the end of civilization as we know it, complete with the gawd-awfulest noises imaginable.

Speaking of "the end of civilization as we know it" some wit has said that there's an equation for it: "Big brains plus opposable thumbs equals the end of civilization as we know it." To that short list, I'd add trigger fingers. Another wit said the world would be a much more peaceful place if boys were born without trigger fingers. 

I've probably said this before, so forgive me for repeating it, but the problem appears to be that our technology has improved amazingly, while our emotional development is stuck at the same level of "fight or flight" as when we first climbed down from the trees and began learning to walk upright on our hind legs. Or, as Will Rogers said, "You can't say civilizations don't advance. In every war they kill you in a new way."