have sat through high school health classes, I have shared the gymnasium with sweaty, crude, middle school boys.                      And I have walked through the courtyard at lunch while freshman guys, years past puberty, declare themselves            

           superior to their male friends.

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So the last thing I want to do when I turn on an accredited news station is listen to two world leaders declare that ‘No, mine is bigger.’

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Their nuclear programs, that is.

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The tense warnings of North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump continue to feel more like two egotistical boys on the playground rather than world leaders exercising appropriate diplomacy.

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Though the waters seem to have cooled slightly since the War of Words began, I can’t help but to look back in amused disgust.

 

I once read countless stories by The Washington Post as a way to decipher my chances of living. I would scroll, scroll, scroll, only stopping to rub my sweaty palms on my jeans. “This is it,” I’d think to myself. “I’m going to die from nuclear radiation, if not the initial impact.”

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News of nuclear war even made its way to school hallways and twitter feeds. There were genuine questions presented: Would we see a major war in our lifetime, and could anyone survive if it turned nuclear?

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I pondered it myself for several days, but after more comments came out from both sides, I doubted a future of firepower - or, “fire and fury,” to be exact.

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All threats are empty. A president who has to tweet: “I would NEVER call (Kim Jong Un) “‘short and fat?’” to make himself appear to have the upper hand must already lack proper reinforcement.

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War is not imminent, and watching the childish dispute of two grown men, doing their best to compensate for their negligent-at-best leadership, is entertaining, not worth serious stress.

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If a declaration of war is ever actually made, I’ll bite my tongue and choose to forget I wrote any of this. Until then, I’ll continue to watch as two leaders maintain stern faces through petty comebacks, while I finally feel comfortable enough to relax mine.

               

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