Terrace Agenda

What the hell is Charles Krauthammer talking about?

Next week marks the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. We say we will return in 2020. But that promise was made by a previous president, and this president has defined himself as the antimatter to George Bush. Moreover, for all of Barack Obama’s Kennedyesque qualities, he has expressed none of Kennedy’s enthusiasm for human space exploration.

So with the Apollo moon program long gone, and with Constellation, its supposed successor, still little more than a hope, we remain in retreat from space. Astonishing. After countless millennia of gazing and dreaming, we finally got off the ground at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Within 66 years, a nanosecond in human history, we’d landed on the moon. Then five more landings, 10 more moonwalkers and, in the decades since, nothing.

You know what’s cool? The moon. You know what I don’t give a shit about right now? The moon.

And yes, it’s because we’ve got some things to deal with here. That’s why. Health care crisis, financial crisis, couple of wars, energy crisis… That’s not small potatoes. Or even large potatoes. Or potatoes at all. That’s some messed-up shit is what that is.

Oh, but Krauty has a very serious and persuasive retort for that line of thinking:

So what, you say? Don’t we have problems here on Earth? Oh, please. Poverty and disease and social ills will always be with us. If we’d waited for them to be rectified before venturing out, we’d still be living in caves.

Oh, you clever boy, Charlie! That’s very relevant here!

Then again, he admits:

Why do it? It’s not for practicality… We go for the wonder and glory of it.

Look, if things were a little more calm around here, I wouldn’t have a problem with moon exploration and such. I’m not someone who thinks we shouldn’t broaden our horizons, so to speak, even just for the sake of broadening them. But pushing for this right now for “glory” is the same sort of thinking that argues George W. Bush was a great president because he was so manly that he could hit the strike zone from 60 feet, 6 inches away from home plate, and he even wore a flight suit once. It’s the “my-dick-is-totally-bigger-than-yours-suck-on-this-we-kick-your-ass-China-look-what-we-did-to-the-Soviet-Union-if-you-don’t-believe-us-we’ll-be-greeted-as-liberators-now-watch-this-drive” school of wingnut thought. Very, very helpful.

And wait, I thought these guys were all concerned about the deficit and stuff? And, like, spending money on things that don’t do us any real good? And now they want to jump on the elevator to space?

Yes, I care about health care more than planting another flag in a place we’ve already been. It’s true. Suck on this, Chuck.



Gil Scott-Heron, 1970:

A rat done bit my sister Nell,
with Whitey on the moon.
Her face and arms began to swell,
and Whitey’s on the moon.
I can’t pay no doctor bills,
but Whitey’s on the moon.
Ten years from now I’ll be payin’ still,
while Whitey’s on the moon.
You know, the man just upped my rent last night,
’cause Whitey’s on the moon.
No hot water, no toilets, no lights,
but Whitey’s on the moon.
I wonder why he’s uppin’ me?
Cause Whitey’s on the moon?
Well I was already givin’ him fifty a week,
with Whitey on the moon.
Taxes takin’ my whole damn check,
Junkies makin’ me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin’ up,
And as if all that crap wasn’t enough–
A rat done bit my sister Nell,
with Whitey on the moon.
Her face and arms began to swell,
but Whitey’s on the moon.
Was all that money I made last year
for Whitey on the moon?
How come there ain’t no money here?
Hmm! Whitey’s on the moon.
You know I just about had my fill
of Whitey on the moon.
I think I’ll send these doctor bills,
Airmail special

to Whitey on the moon.