Space flights of fancy

 I am a space baby.

I grew up watching the federally subsided glory days of NASA, rooting for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs to develop and then, ultimately, culminate with the moon landings in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It was exciting stuff until both the funding and the national will dried up. There never was any colonization of the lunar surface, which I always thought was the ultimate goal of NASA. Instead, we got a space shuttle program that seemed like an unsatisfying substitute for space exploration. Shuttles were never going to go to the moon, much less into deep space.

And then the shuttle program, stunned by the Challenger (1986) and Columbia (2003) disasters, dried up.

All that's left is the International Space Station and robots on Mars. I know important research is being done on the ISS, but it seems like the $100 billion spent so far mostly gives us images of astronauts turning weightless somersaults in their cramped cylinder. Okay. Ho hum. Go back to your research.

Until this month when the billionaires arrived.

On July 11, Sir Richard Branson took himself and several of his Virgin Galactic employees to the edge of space. They traveled in a vehicle (Unity 22) that looked something like a cross between an airplane and a gooney bird, and even though they didn't exceed the Kármán Line (that arbitrary threshold between atmosphere and true space 62 miles high that nobody ever heard of until this month), they got to float weightlessly for four minutes and saw the curvature of the Earth. That makes them astronauts in my view.

Then, today, Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos took three other passengers with him beyond the Kármán Line in a more traditional-looking rocket in a flight that lasted 11 minutes. It was reminiscent, to me, of Alan Shepherd's sub-orbital Project Mercury flight in 1961. You gotta start somewhere.

Bezos' mission looked pefect. The most amazing thing, I thought, was how the reusable booster rocket made a perfect upright landing on a pad not far from its desert launch site. The crew capsule, which included 82-year-old Wally Funk (an original Mercury 13 astronaut who trained with the guys but never flew because, well, she was a woman in a high-ceiling era), also made a perfect landing. Funk flew today and she could barely contain her excitement. Consequently, neither could I. She brought tears to my eyes. Good for her.

Originally, I wasn't too excited about billionaires trying to beat each other into space. Wouldn't humanity be better served if they put some of that incredible wealth into social projects to help the hungry and homeless? Or would it?

But I've revised my thinking. Maybe later, I'll revise it again.

We live on a fragile and finite plant. Eventually, some bazillion years from now, the Earth will be swallowed up by its dying giant red sun. Hopefully, by then, humanity will have found a way to Star Trek itself to other life-sustaining systems. Unless, of course, we continue to reject vaccines and mask mandates every time a pandemic comes along to try and wipe us out.

We can be, at the same time, both brilliant and extinction-insistent dinosaurs.

So, yeah, I salute private funding of space exploration. It's their money (if would help if Amazon would pay taxes, though. That's a good way to help the hungry and homeless. Actually, you might be helping to subsidize each space mission with your next Amazon order), they can do what they want with it.

In the end, this makes me feel like we're back in the game. This kind of space race might be just what we need.

Here we go again

 Why are you not vaccinated against the re-emerging Covid-19 virus?

What's your excuse?

Why are you endangering yourself? Why are you endangering me?

Because you are among the unvaccinated, the original virus has mutated to a more highly infectious Delta variant. That's science. That's what viruses do. They mutate. They evolve in an effort to survive. 

Everything evolves on a planet that revolves.

So is it because you don't believe the science? That's a ridiculous excuse. Your entire body is a walking science project, beginning with the very act of breathing and respiration, where oxygen makes that magical exchange with carbon dioxide in the thoracic cavity. 

(You learned this stuff in school. You know – the place where you had to be vaccinated for polio, smallpox, rubella and other viruses before you could attend. You've already been vaccinated for certain viruses and they have been shown to work. What's your issue with this one?)

The virus interferes with that exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. It's why some people end up on ventilators when infected with Covid-19.

The vaccine interferes with that viral interference, thereby saving your life. Right now, 99.5 percent of Covid-19 deaths are among the unvaccinated. Let that sink in for a moment.

So it's simple logic, don't you think? Get vaccinated.

What, you don't believe the statistics? You think the 600,000 Covid-19 deaths are elevated numbers, fudged by medical officials for insurance paybacks? You think some of those deaths were heart attacks or cancer deaths, but listed as Covid? Death certificates are signed by medical examiners, coroners or licensed physicians. A false document can result in jail time and decertification, something those professionals probably don't want to risk. Trust the numbers.

The rise in hospitalizations is probably the most obvious indicator of the resurgence in Covid. A rise in deaths will likely follow. How many times must we learn this lesson?  Get vaccinated.

Is it political ideology? Why? A public health crisis should not be political. We should not be divided among the vaccinated and unvaccinated, and yet, here we are. Curiously, Republican-controlled states have the lowest vaccination rates and the greatest increase of Covid-19 hospitalization: Mississippi has a vaccination rate of only 33.8 percent. That's the state that currently has 10 elementary school-age children on ventilators. Louisiana is 36.1 percent. Georgia is 37.5 percent.

North Carolina is 42.9 percent.

The coastal states, where most of the Democratic electorate resides, has rates like Vermont, 66.8 percent; Massachusetts, 63 percent, and Connecticut, 62.2 percent. Or near herd immunity.

Former President Trump, a self-styled science denier and a self-styled Republican, once claimed that he took unproven and unapproved hydroxychloroquine as a preventative for Covid, but he got the virus anyway. He was hospitalized for several days and was nearly put on a ventilator twice. He was treated with eight different drugs, including Remdesivir, before showing improvement. The day he was released, he made it a point to arrogantly remove his mask in his best Mussolini impression to show his apparent victory over Covid. Yes. We all want close calls like his.

And here's the kicker: Trump and his family eventually got vaccinated anyway. So if your hero got the needle, why don't you? What's stopping you now?

Is it because you don't believe the news media? Of course. Any mainstream news that doesn't agree with your agenda has got to be corrupted, right? Not like that reliable social media. Disinformation is a huge problem in getting people vaccinated: some folks think there has not been enough testing of the vaccine, others believe injections make you sicker than the virus itself. Some think surveillance chips are being injected into your body, while others think you're being magnetized.

Clearly, the government is out to get you.

Holy crap.

All you have to do is look at the vaccinated world to see that the vaccine is indeed working. All you have to do is talk to somebody who's been vaccinated to find out how liberated they feel. We need to get this done before there's a Gamma deviant. Because, you know, mutating is what viruses do.

Human beings are an incredible dichotomy. We can be so phenomenal in our science, in our arts, in our architecture, in our religions.

And, at the same time, we can be dumber than a bag of bricks, skewed as we are by our ideologies and disinformation. The current Covid surge could get really bad by the time school restarts in a few weeks. It could mean the return of mask mandates and social distancing, and it makes me angry. It doesn't have to be that way.

Get vaccinated.

 

Now it's the songbirds

The other day I was flipping through my Facebook account when a story about songbirds appeared in my news feed.

It said any number of species – robins, grackles, wrens, sparrows, blue jays, and cardinals among them – were dying of a mysterious illness. Science, to this point, had no idea why, only speculation.

According to the US Geological Survey (see here), the illness is affecting birds across the mid-Atlantic region.

This was distressing news to  me. I have several bird feeders – one for hummingbirds, another for upside-down-feeding gold finches, and yet another for all those songbirds – and the thought of them going silent was a bit unnerving.

And, yet, as I thought about it, there seemed to be some truth to this latest pandemic. We've had noticeably less activity at the feeders. Kim and I thought perhaps there were some birds of prey nearby, like falcons, hawks or hoot owls.

A few years ago, we saw a cluster of feathers in our backyard and attributed the slaughter to some nearby redtail hawks, who are carnivorous cannibals, I guess.

Right now, though, it's all a mystery. There is some speculation that this year's cicada outbreak might be linked to the bird illness, but that remains to be seen. It's currently unproven theory.

Curiously, people investigating this mystery have suggested that a way to mitigate the spread of the illness is through social distancing. 

No, not us, silly. We've already done that for humans and it works. But what we can do to help the birds is to take down your bird feeders. Remove backyard bird baths. Take away anything where birds congregate in order to give scientists a chance to figure out what's going on.

It may sound a little ridiculous now, but bird-to-human infections are not all that uncommon. Remember the avian flu scare we get every so often? So far, a handful of A(H9N2) cases have already been reported in the Western Pacific Region. We need to keep an eye on this, I think, because if nothing else, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that we are not much more than human Petri dishes. Keep your hand sanitizer handy. Get your flu shot.

All of this makes me wonder what's going on with the planet. Our bee population pollinators are on the decline, which has serious implications for the food chain. It's food for thought. Does climate change have a hand in this?

Aren't we Biblically challenged to be caring stewards of the planet? (Genesis 1:26-28 – And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

²⁸ And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.) 

Is it really up to us?

Save the birds. Save the bees. Save the whales. Save the elephants. And maybe save ourselves.

 

Neighborhood dresses up again

I had just completed watering the herb, vegetable and flower gardens in our backyard the other day and was making my way to the front when I noticed the red, white and blue wind spinners standing proudly in both of the rouge-red potted begonias that grace the entrance way to our house.

"Oh, that's nice," I said to myself. "I wonder who did that?"

I finished watering the plants and then stepped inside for a moment to get some relief from the steamy summer heat. When I came back outside, there were some Stars and Stripes bunting on my front porch railings. They hadn't been there 10 minutes earlier.

The Fun Fourth Faeries had targeted our domain.

Our house all dressed up for the Fourth.

And it wasn't just us. Bunting began appearing on the house across the street, next to the house that already had its colors on display days earlier.

By the end of the week, the houses of the Thornhills, Stricklands, Dillards, Cudes, Sanows, Colemans, Wests, Wehrles and Zannis (yes, actually I live in a neighborhood where some of the folks are perhaps a little bit squirrely whirly and maybe a touch zaney), were duly decorated.

The entire block. All of us. Red, white and blue.

This should come as no surprise, however. Back in December, ours was the neighborhood that was voted Best Decorated for the second straight year in the City of Lexington's Light up the Block contest.

If truth be told, I know these magical faeries. Kristi Thornhill, Stacy Sosebee-West and Pam Zanni were the irresistible forces ramrodding this project of patriotism. Perhaps not coincidentally, all three are educators who, no doubt, grew up surrounded in construction paper, crayons, glue pots and original ideas.

For this week, at least, they're real firecrackers.

And thank you.

(Here's a glimpse of the rest of the block. Click on each picture to enlarge):

 

What a week

When I first heard the sentencing in real time on Friday for Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd, I thought, man, he's getting off easy.

What I thought I heard the judge say was 270 months of imprisonment. I did some quick math in my head, which has never been a strong point for me. I should never do quick math in my head. I mean, I don't belong to Mensa. I thought, "Geez, that's only 10 years. He'll be out by next week."

Within moments, the racing chyron on the bottom of the TV screen cleared everything up. Chauvin was sentenced to 22.5 years. I heaved a sigh of relief. That's better. Much better.

But is it justice? Is it accountability? Chauvin is 45 years old and will likely serve the minimum of 15 years, which means he'll be 60 when he gets out. For murder. With a knee on Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. With hands in his pockets and arrogance on his face. All while Floyd was in handcuffs, pleading for his life, until his life left him.

In my mind, there's no justice for a murder. How can there be when the victim no longer lives? Anything else is simply revenge, which for some, might be enough. Justice, however, would be Floyd still breathing with Chauvin imprisoned for civil rights violations.

Chauvin, in fact, still faces federal charges, which means there could be additional sentencing.

And accountability? The City of Minneapolis (and thus the employer of its police department) has already paid the Floyd family $27 million in a lawsuit settlement case. This helps, but true accountability also would include some sort of police reform. Otherwise, this kind of feels like Minneapolis is clapping its hands clean, whispering to itself, "Well, that's one less thing to worry about."

•  •  •

Earlier in the week, on Thursday, we woke up to the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers in Surfside, FL. The building is a 12-story structure that was built 40 years ago on reclaimed land.

Right now, 156 people are still missing. Five are confirmed dead, but with each passing hour it's likely the death toll will rise.

The thing that gets to me right now is watching the rescuers walk into the unstable rubble, sifting through the debris brick by brick, trying to locate survivors. I can't believe that kind of courage. That's got to be war-like courage. Courage under fire. They relentlessly work with the knowledge the rest of the building could tumble down on top of them at any moment. I hope Surfside has $27 million to pay these guys.

Anyway, I got to thinking about high-rise buildings built on reclaimed coastal plains. What greedy developer came up with that bright idea? Surfside has made it optional for nearby residents to evacuate their high rises as a safety measure. Optional. Like a vaccine.

My degree is in English and not engineering, but even my non-Mensa brain can speculate that building tall towers on saltwater marshes will probably compromise the supporting iron rebar in concrete. One engineer, in fact, has stated that the tower was sinking two millimeters a year for at least 30 years.

There are environmental concerns, too. Climate change is resulting in measurably higher sea levels. What does this mean for all the towers built on the three-feet above sea level coastline? And not just in Florida, but how about South Carolina and North Carolina as well.

I've never been a fan of high rises on everybody's Ocean Drive right on the beach. Sure, you get great views of the water for top-dollar prices, but at what cost? The high rises block out the sun and give you the sensation of driving through a concrete canyon. 

It's been a helluva week.

Dad

Well, Dad, there's that one indelible memory that I have of you from an incredibly powerful portfolio of memories you left me in your short 58 years.

We were at Cedar Creek Parkway in Allentown. You brought a baseball, a glove and a bat. I was 6 years old. The sun was shining and the grass was sweet beneath our feet. There was a willow tree nearby. Little Lehigh Creek gurgled just off to our right.

With your firstborn. You're just a kid yourself.

 It was idyllic.

You told me to put on the glove. You showed me how to get into an infielder's crouch, with my hands on my knees, including the hand with the glove. Then you walked a few steps away and batted soft grounders to me, telling me to get behind the ball. And to catch it with two hands.

We did that for a while, stabbing at grounders that practically died in the thick grass before they even reached me.

Then it was my turn to bat. You showed me how to take my stance, how to hold the bat, to keep my eye on the ball. Soft pitches, rock solid memories. You showed me how to love baseball.

It was my Field of Dreams moment, although I wouldn't know that for another five decades or so.

"Hey, Dad. You wanna have a catch?"

That's the memory that, to this day, doesn't go away. I don't want it to.

There were other moments. You showed me how to properly shake hands with a firm grip. You made me understand I wasn't being picked on when a joke was pointed at me. You were an English teacher back then and you helped me learn how to write. I turned that into a career as a sports writer, which I think made you proud. You once showed me a scrapbook you kept of the stories I wrote for the paper. I didn't know you did that.

We had the talk. I think I already knew most of this stuff, but I was your first born, and I think you felt it was part of the parenting ritual. Our talk might have lasted two minutes. I don't remember asking questions.

Somewhere along the line, you became a Moravian minister. You officiated at my wedding, and Kim felt she was lucky to have in-laws like you and Mom.

As we got older, we learned to play golf. The trouble was, I was in North Carolina, and you were in Wisconsin. We'd get to play together whenever we saw each other on vacation. We were horrible golfers, but this was never about our skill set. It was about our quality time together.

Time. I didn't know there was so little of it.

There was that phone call from Wisconsin. You told me you had cancer. The doctor said you had a year to live. You endured it for as long as you could. You assisted at Scott's, your youngest son's, wedding, even though the pain of your cancer must have been horrible. I don't know how you did it.

And then you were gone, way too soon.

And now, 34 years later, I can only hope that I've become the person that you hoped I'd be.

Maybe somebody like you.

Hey, Dad. You wanna have a catch?

D-Day

Today marks the 77th anniversary of D-Day, that seminal moment in American military history that amazes and inspires us at the same time. It shares our grateful awe of commitment with the likes of Valley Forge, or Gettysburg, or even the Alamo, among many other pivotal battles in our hallowed memory.

D-Day marked the primary invasion of western Europe (the Allied landings of Sicily and Italy in 1943 notwithstanding) and signaled the beginning of the end of the Nazi Third Reich.

In terms of timeline, I was born only seven years after D-Day. So the only way I can experience that remarkable day – the horror, the heroism, the history – is through books, or grainy newsreel footage, or cinema. 

There were 4,414 Allied deaths that day, about 2,501 of them American. And most of them on Omaha Beach.

So when I watch the footage, or read the history, I wonder if those soldiers had any idea of the history they were making. Did they see their service as one of preserving democracy in the face of fascism? They saw the effects of fascism – the death camps, the genocide, the destruction – firsthand. Would it ever cross their minds that autocracy could happen in the very country where they were fighting to preserve their democracy?

Could they envision the systematic suppression of voting rights in an era of Jim Crow? But even in this war, attitudes were changing. Two months after the D-Day landings, the Allies made their breakout, eventually outrunning their supply lines. Thus was born the Red Ball Express, a truck-dominated convoy system where 75 percent of the drivers were African-Americans who were racing much-needed supplies through Europe to the front lines. 

The Red Tails, another Black outfit, flew P-40s and then P-51s providing escort for the bombing missions over Germany. The 761st antitank battalion, yet another all-Black unit, wrote history in Belgium. One of its soldiers, an athlete named Lt. Jackie Robinson, went on to create baseball history a few years later.

The 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Infantry Regiment was composed of soldiers of Japanese descent, many of whom saw their very families sent to internment camps for the duration of the war. Despite this, the 100th became one of the most decorated units in our history.

What was that about immigration?

So anyway, when I see the footage of American soldiers falling on the sand at Omaha Beach, does it occur to those men that one day the U.S. Capitol could be stormed by white supremacy groups? That an entire political party deals in conspiracies and lies in order to maintain its power? Isn't that what those soldiers were fighting against? Is that the American future for which those soldiers gave their lives?

I once thought D-Day meant the end of Nazi dominance in Europe. But neo-Nazi groups are springing up like mushrooms in the darkness. Social and political division is everywhere.

D-Day has to mean more than that. We have to be better than this. Those men who fell on the beaches were our Greatest Generation. Surely we can be better than this. 

For them.