Will it Ever End?

Article published: Tuesday, January 27th 2009

I sometimes think we live in a uniquely paranoid age. We don’t, of course. In the 1980s terror was everywhere (except it was godless).

Someone recently sent me this US baseball card as a present. Taken from an old pack of sweets on sale in Manhattan, it’s part of a set produced in 1987 by the Piedmont Candy Company (well known for their fine peppermints, apparently). The whole series is entitled “Terrorist Attack: America Strikes Back”. It’s awesome: check out the gorgeously ambiguous racial suggestiveness in the guy’s features, and his Soviet-looking pistol – a kind of Dr No meets Abu Abbas.

Other highlights in the series apparently include “Mad Dog Kaddafi”, A Bomb for Thatcher”, “Missiles in Space” and “Run, Children, Run!”. I want them all.

These cards were apparently intended to be educational. Accordingly, there’s some sound advice on the back for the nation’s terrified youngsters as they munch through their Peppermint Puffs: “Perhaps the only response the individual can make to terrorism is to keep faith in God, our country, and a well-stocked personal arsenal.”

Amen.

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