Without commenting on last night’s caucus results from Iowa — despite all the spin, who knows what they mean, really, beyond John Kerry having a pulse for another week — one notes that our next scheduled inauguration is a year from today.
Molly Kelly
The lead paragraph from the AP obit in Friday’s New York Times:
SYDNEY, Australia, Jan. 15 — Molly Kelly, whose childhood trek across 1,000 miles of the Australian desert to return to her Aboriginal mother inspired the 2002 movie “Rabbit-Proof Fence,” died on Tuesday at her home in Jigalong in Western Australia, her family said. She was thought to be 87.
The movie is great.
What Bush’s Space Thing Will Cost
“Space thing,” because there’s no telling what it really is right now. Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at Harvard who publishes the essential newsletter on space launches (Jonathan’s Space Report) raises some restrained but sobering questions about what will happen to NASA’s science mission under the Bush plan:
“… If …space science program funding is redirected to the (however worthy) human exploration program, it could be a major setback to our exploration of the wider universe.”
Mars Again …
To answer my own question (“who said anything about Mars”): Bush did. I did not see it in the New York Times excerpts of his speech. But I checked the White House transcript and watched video from the NASA site, and the president definitely said … “Mars.”
Who Said Anything About Mars?
Interesting that all the speculation about Bush’s space announcement today focused on launching a mission to Mars. But the president never said anything about Mars: He talked about some initiatives NASA already has under way (finishing the space station, retiring the shuttle), tweaked an existing initiative (building a new space plane, as NASA plans, but one with the ability to leave Earth orbit), and announced a new scheme: to go back to the moon. After that, he said something about preparing “for new journeys to worlds beyond our own,” but nothing about how any of this will be paid for after a second Bush term, especially given the massive deficit he’s creating.
One is tempted to recall the first loud call to boldly go to the Red Planet, from Spiro Agnew in 1969. NASA had lots of people, including Wernher von Braun, all ready to dive into a Mars program as soon as the Apollo missions to the moon proved successful. As I recall it — caveat there — Agnew made a speech soon after the Apollo 11 launch talking about how we’d go to Mars next. His remarks inspired Chicago Sun-Times cartoonist Bill Mauldin to sketch the vice president wearing a bubble helmet, soaring into the air and saying with a wave, “See you on Mars!”
Nixon and his people dismissed Agnew and his support for the idea as if he were the village idiot. Nixon had decided the to curtail the space program, and that was that. Personally, I think Agnew was too mean to be the village idiot. Just like Bush. But maybe a more solid connection between the two initiatives is politics. The political realities of 1969 — dominated by the Vietnam War — didn’t support a big new space program. And it’s doubtful that the political realities of today — dominated by a much less defined but expensive military effort and the likely reality that future administrations will have very little discretion to commit tens or hundreds of billions to something like Mars — will support one either.
Night Cycling
The best thing:
–The unexpected sights. Tonight: the view of Sirius appearing just above a ridge top as I rode up Claremont; the mist lapping over the saddle at the top of Claremont Canyon as I finished the slow, steep climb; the fog blanketing the valleys to the east.
Breaking the poetic mood:
–The uncertainty whether cars approaching from behind on the dark hills roads really see you.
–The discovery as I started to descend Grizzly Peak toward home that the nice, bright white lines on the right side of the road were nearly invisible, obscured by leaves and mud and other storm litter. Made the descent a little tricky.
Are We Stupid, Or …
… Really, really stupid?
Something else from that Pew Research Center study on where people get campaign news: The utter cluelessness of most survey respondents on basic factual questions about candidates and issues. The survey found:
“…Most Americans are not familiar with the ins and outs of the campaign” and “public awareness of facts about the candidates’ backgrounds also is relatively low.”
“Relatively low” is a charitable description. The survey asked two questions about Democriatic candidates’ backgrounds: Which one is a former general? Which one used to be House majority leader? The survey reports that 31 percent of respondents knew the answer to the first question (clue: not Tippecanoe, or Ulysses S. Grant, neither), and 26 percent answered question two correctly (a guy from Missouri, but not Harry Truman).
On the other hand, the survey found that older people and those who say they regularly get news from the Net, from NPR, or newsmagazines seem to be more on the ball. A full third of that group answered both questions correctly.
New spin on the 2000 election: We elected a true man of the people. Pass the pretzels.
Laugh the Vote, or Something
An excellent study today from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press on what voters think about campaign coverage and what sources they use: Not too surprisingly, more and more people think news coverage of the presidential race is slanted. The difference from four years ago: Democrats (who see a right-wing bias) are joining Republicans (who think leftists run the media) in complaining about it. But what I find most interesting is this finding:
“…One-in-five young people say they regularly get campaign news from the Internet, and about as many (21%) say the same about comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live and the Daily Show. For Americans under 30, these comedy shows are now mentioned almost as frequently as newspapers and evening network news programs as regular sources for election news.”
I love it: News you can trust from Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon.
Back to the Blog ……
Back to Berkeley from Chicago, where I spent Friday and Saturday at Bill Hogan’s memorial and funeral. What was great about it:
–Met lots of the religious people and activists with whom Uncle Bill spent his life. Many priests who were ordained in his class at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary (1952) or immediately before and after. Many people from the civil rights movements. Even a few from the Communist Party USA, one of Bill’s latter-day affiliations.
–Met a few only dimly known relatives, including Joe O’Malley, one of my mom’s first cousins, who saved her from drowning in Lake Michigan in 1939 (she was 9, he was 17; four other members of her family did drown)
–In talking to the people at the memorial, managed to come up with what I think is a workable parallel for the life Bill led. Everybody talked about what an activist he was, his humor, how interesting he was, how constant in his principles, how ready always to start a protest or join a protest (one person claimed that Jesse Jackson nicknamed Bill “instant picket” back in the ’60s). What I hit on was this: Yes, Bill did fight for freedom and lead a free life. But one aspect of doing that is pure terror (for most people, at least, including myself): Like Jesus in “The Last Temptation of Christ,” you let your actions be guided by a voice no one else can hear, by a vision no one else can see. To others, you look crazy or extreme. To persist in following that course is one definition of courage.
Chicago Then
By way of Disarranging Mine:
“Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection:
“Charles Weever Cushman, amateur photographer and Indiana University alumnus, bequeathed approximately 14,500 Kodachrome color slides to his alma mater. The photographs in this collection bridge a thirty-two year span from 1938 to 1969, during which time he extensively documented the United States as well as other countries.
“There’s an easily searchable index. He took thousands of pictures in Illinois, most in Chicago, a few in Springfield. They’re all beautiful.”