First off, why does Dayton still get an air show?
Anyway, the planes will be a-flyin’ in Dayton this summer, so feel free to amble southward to get your fix of mouth-breathing and aircraft-watching in. But thanks to widespread criticism, there won’t be a massive atomic bomb dropped on the city.
A reenactment of the uber-cheerful Aug. 6, 1945, bombing of Hiroshima was originally on the bill. Family fun and atomic warfare do tend to go hand in hand, right, Debra Barone? But the outcry, combined with some handy petition-signing, brought the show to its knees.
So rather than have a B-29 just drop trou over the city of Dayton, the organizers will maintain the fanfare as much as they can and convert the bomby stuff into an educational “Great Wall of Fire” pyrotecnic show. The whole thing sounds more like Jerry Lee Lewis staging a Wish You Were Here gig. (B.Y.O.M., of course. There will be no mushroom clouds at this thing now, so, duh, bring your own mushrooms.)
And while Scene DOES NOT CONDONE revisionist history (just like how we allow Dennis Kucinich to garner his annual “Best Politician” tags in our Best of Cleveland issues), we applaud the Dayton crowd for resisting the hegemonic display of U.S. atomic might this summer.
This article appears in Apr 17-23, 2013.
Can we have the a-bomb re-enactment still if we drop an a-bomb on North Korea? Their retaliatory nuclear missile will fall into the ocean once the cardboard fins fall off.
Yes, I agree. The mushroom cloud idea, although dramatic eye candy, would have been tasteless. I would still question why it has become so “cool” and excepted to offend the people that have to breath from there mouths. As if my broken nose, two nose surgeries, and a life of sickness and discomfort has equated me with an “f”ing retard.. Oh my! I didn’t use the “R” word or the “f” word. Just understand that in your attempt to sound cool you elevate yourself to be superior to others and this is still wrong. (disclaimer: I used the word ‘retard’ to make a point. Please don’t tell me how wrong that is. I get it.)