7 People

2003-02-02 - 1:33 a.m.

The television is telling me that something important, something earth shattering, something so tragic that we all must unite, not just as a nation, but as a -world- to protect our loved ones and restore world peace.

So, a space shuttle - a twenty-two years old space shuttle - has exploded. Already the media (thanks to Bush) has tried to make a connection between this and terrorism, even if its a connection-by-negation (or almost negation).

A note to the World: not everything was done by terrorists.

Anyway, despite what the television wants me to think, I'm not able to feel horrified by this. It's terrible for the friends, families, and co-workers of those astronauts, and I hope that they can weather their grief with some success, but this event has no connection to me: I'm not an astronaut. I'm not interested in becoming an astronaut (well, if someone asked me to, I might...).

I'm not sure why this event is getting such a different treatment than, say, wildfires killing 7 people, or landslides or avalanches...or the thousands of people who are shot, die of drug overdoses, live in poverty in the US everyday. Can you imagine if there was a breaking story for welfare moms?

I feel like there's this terrible disconnect between the media and the real world, which is not a happy place to be in when the media is supposed to be the way I see the real world beyond my personal experience.

And thoughts I've had...

-If the US had decided to fund NASA better, putting even a fraction of the trillions of dollars earmarked for warfare/military investments toward a space program, this incident may not have happened: at the very least, the astronauts would not have been relying on technology that is two decades old.

-Why is this important? Why? What are they trying to hide? Is this a smokescreen for something bigger? Why even mention terrorism in the same sentence?

-I want George Bush Jr. to shut up. I can't stand that man. Pookie and I have decided that he can never be invited to dinner, because I would be overcome by the urge to start slapping him upside the head whenever he tried to sound dire and important. Make no mistake about it.

-I hope Eli is okay. He found out this morning that his mom's sister, who had been ill for a while, has died.

Cheers,

The Magus

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