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Pine Nuts – Maui’s Race to End the Arms Race

March 8, 2023 | McAvoy Lane

Fifty years ago or so, I cut a football in half (lengthwise), attached a chinstrap, and with the football atop my head, ran Maui’s, “First Annual Race to End the Arms Race,” as an MX Missile…

At the winner’s podium (there wasn’t one) I made a long-winded speech appealing to all nations in the arms race to lay down their arms, at least their nuclear arms. When I finished my plea, I noticed I was alone on the beach with my dog, Digger. Everybody had gone home. 

Fast forwarding fifty years, Vladimir Putin announced in his State of the Nation address, that he is suspending the Nuclear-Arms Treaty between Russia and the United States.

Hand me the football. It’s time for another Race to End the Arms Race, only this time, we are going to have one runner entered from each of the world’s 195 countries. This international ten-k will be held once again on the peaceful Island of Maui, though this time we will have a podium for the male and female winners to posit their appeals, and this time their pleas will be heard around the world.

What is President Putin to say when runners from all 195 countries stand together and say, “ENOUGH!” The court of public opinion carries weight, and when world opinion is unanimous, well, it carries the weight of the world, so it’s high time we all got on the same page.

Those who know me know I like to reside in the 19th century alongside Mark Twain, so please indulge me as we remember what “The Moralist of the Main” reminds us in his essay, “What is Man?” 

“Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. And in the intervals between campaigns, he washes the blood off his hands and works for ‘the universal brotherhood of man’–with his mouth.”

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 was signed on July 1st. Let us embrace Maui’s Race to End the Arms Race on Saturday, July first of 2023, and for once and for all, let us put an end to this grotesque theater of the absurd, the very real possibility and constant fear of annihilation.

Preparations are now underway for registration that will be limited to one participant from each of the world’s 195 countries, registration to commence on June first… 

Listen to the Audio:  https://anchor.fm/mcavoy-layne

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