Make Space Great Again

Maybe Trump actually wants to create a sex slave colony on Mars? How else to explain this recent executive order.

This is an administration that has gutted its energy department, making it clear there is no room for science except when it comes to nukes. Scott Pruitt has actually launched a program to formally challenge climate change science, and is in the process of dismantling the EPA as we know it. This is the most anti-science administration since Reagan, who similarly went out of his way to eradicate the sustainable energy initiatives started under Jimmy Carter. It's a wonder the solar panels are still on the roof of thee White House, but give Trump or Bannon or Rick Perry time to discover they are there.

Yet, Trump is rekindling the National Space Council, which was disbanded in 1993 over internal frictions between NASA and the NSC. The Pere Bush and subsequent Clinton administrations decided to go with NASA. But, the oddest thing is making Mike Pence chairman of the revived council, a man who has about as much interest in science as does Robert Davis Steele, who actually forced NASA to issue a response to his ludicrous claim that it had established a child sex slave colony on Mars.

In the Age of Trump it seems we are compelled to respond to any allegation no matter how absurd, as there are actually people out there who believe this shit and if you allow it to gather stench it can soon stink up the whole place. Not that it does much good, as these idiots will believe what they want to believe. Many still insist the moon landing was a hoax. Yet, they think the government is covering up the existence of UFO's.

How the new space council will operate under Starship Fleet Captain Pence is anyone's guess? The executive order offers no clue. Most likely this will be a cynical way to funnel money to defense contractors under the guise of a "space program." However, the Trump family could be looking for a quick exit if things turn out as bad as Stephen Hawking says, giving the green light to put Elon Musk's SpaceX program and Mars mission into warp speed.

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The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

Team of Rivals Reading Group

''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005

Dispatches from Vilnius

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