Friday, October 09, 2009

One Lune day


John Kennedy, 1962

Today...I blew up the moon....and I won the Nobel Peace Prize....all before 8 am. What did you do today?

Barack Obama, 2009

Of course I jest...we didn't really land on the moon....

No i'm just kidding again....

We did land on the moon. And we really did bomb the moon....on the same day Obama really did win the Nobel Peace Prize....but he didn't really make that quote.

Forgive me if the combination of events has my head swirling.

I get why we landed on the moon. I kind of get why we bombed it. I'm not sure if I get why Obama won the Nobel.

The word on the wire is that this is in anticipation of his future decisions and leadership. Essentially, they gave him an award for something they expect him to do.

I suppose the fact that we bombed a defenseless satellite on the same day our president receives a prize for peaceful conflict resolution is pure coincidence....the irony is thick....yet admittedly I'm not smart enough to formulate the joke.

Temporally, I'm not opposed to Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

For that matter, I'm not necessarily opposed to blowing up the moon...

...its just one of those things I never really prioritized.

Unless the moon is really made of cheese and this bomb will somehow blow massive chunks back into our atmosphere and we can mine it....cause I really do love cheese....and we have a lot of hungry people on the planet, ya know. That would explain everything.

In all fairness to Barack, the plan to bomb the moon was set in place during the Bush administration. I just can't resist the absurd synchronicity of today's events.

So moving forward...and apparently the Nobel committee is way ahead of us....I would offer Obama a very clear path to the honor he just received....

Revoke "don't ask, dont' tell." Just tell the world its OK to be gay. That single act alone would justify the recognition he received today. Create a common acceptance under our common law...and watch the Constitution become reality.

Will he do it? I'm not holding my breath. But if he does...I would say it's just as important to this country as Kennedy's moon shot, if not more.



did you watch the bombing of the moon today live on t.v.?

i was transfixed and transported to my youth when i was a boy watching the moon landing on a black and white t.v. with a wooden cabinet four times bigger than the screen.

the fact that the vid was in black and white was part of it.

being an old fart and than suddenly being 8 years old again really freaked me out.

when they switched to the color vid at mission control i awoke from my reverie.

as for the dont ask dont tell ban , all his mouth pieces are sending signals that its coming.

the fact that he's doing it in the first year makes me think he could rally congress while he still has the muscle.

i think the fall out will also make him more likely to get re-elected as all the yahoo noise that will eminate are not really the voices of the majority of voters.

i.e. i think some people will cross over because of disgust by the loudest voices that "represent" them.

most people i talk to blue or red tend to be at the center of their party.

rhetoric either way turns them off.

i like your theory of why he could could earn his prize.

it makes a lot more sense than peace in the middle east in our generation.

Tom Degan said...




But seriously folks....

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

Anonymous said...

For those not born in the USA, the American assumption that the moon is American property is sad.

Some might say, "Well, we landed there!" which is true, although it is also true that technology from many American-allied countries helped to get the USA there.

But why is landing there the only measure of connectedness?

Why do we think about the MOON as if it is something that can or should be owned, mined, bombed, colonized, and so on?

For millenia, cultures have been creating myths, poems, songs and stories about the moon. Shamans "visit" the moon. There were moon festivals and moon cakes and moon Gods or Goddesses way before there was a USA.

Lunar calendars have been important to many cultures the world over for thousands of years.

Scientists from cultures all over the world have been charting and studying the moon. for a long time, it was the Islamis world that knew the most about the moon, but they never presumed to "own" the moon. Those Empires have passed now, and our culture is the beneficiary of a lot of their science, which forms part of the foundation of ours.

There is a relationship between the moon and all the tidal waters of the Earth, and that relationship is ancient.

Women the world over often chart their menstrual cycle using a lunar chart.

All these relationships seem as important or more important to me than one culture's notion of Manifest Destiny, which is kind of a scary idea in practice.

I wasn't born when the first dog went into space or when the first people landed on the moon, but even the old footage of it is thrilling.

I love the excited, weightless jumping of the astronauts. The moon landing is part of what makes America great.
Americans can do anything they set their mind to. Americans dream big. Americans can change the world. Americans have the prettiest flag.

But the bombing and exploitation of the moon, on top of all the other places bombed and exploited, is just depressing. Is nothing sacred?

The moon, visible to everyone on Earth and important to all cultures, should be something we recognize as a universal, sacred, precious thing that we all as humans share with the other people who see the same moon we do, and with all our ancestors.

Surely you must have looked up at some beautiful moon and thought with love of a person far away, who might also be looking up?

If they want some big important project, why can't they fix what we've destroyed here on Earth?

Why is there never money to conserve watersheds or to keep mountains from being blown up to get at the coal? Why can't they just cure AIDS? Leave the moon alone!

About Obama's Nobel: you know how physicists say that there are probably lots of universes all playing out all at once?

After he got that Nobel, I began to wonder if we are all living in Barak Obama's "Oscar speech" dream.

You know that fantasy land world we all have of being sports heros, rock stars playing to thousands, curing cancer, or doing something cool we will not do? That singing in the shower world?

For most of us, we have fewer of those dreams as we get older and our own lives turn out normal-cool, but we can admit to imagining the ocassional crowd cheering for us as we sink a basket in our driveway.

But if there are multiple universes, dude, we are living in Barak Obama's wildest dream:

"I have a hot wife! I'm a DAD! I'm a Dad again! I'm President! And I win the Nobel!"

Watch out for the Obama Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, daytime Emmy, Country Music Award, Pulitzer, Booker prize, Superbowl Ring, and World Cup soccer victory.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe you were able to write: obama should revoke Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and two days later I read on that he will do it!