
I caught In the Shadow of the Moon the other night. It was excellent, a moving look back at the greatest achievement in the history of the human race. (Michael Collins was the de facto star, as he's the funniest of the Apollo astronauts.) On looking back, though, the biggest feeling I get is irritation about our current situation. To me the moon landing period seems like an age of titans compared to now. It was a time of huge problems: racism, civil rights, war, and the moon for starters. But at least people tried—and succeeded, sometimes—to do something about those problems.
Now the problems we are facing, particularly climate change, are arguably worse. But we can't seem to muster up the will to even admit they're problems. When the banking lobby took down the foreclosure bill (cramdown) they not only killed the bill, they got billions in new bailout money. I'll be surprised if we leave Afghanistan while I am alive (we're still in Germany, fer chrissakes). And climate change? Nothing even attempted.
But what gets us up in arms? A mosque in New York, two blocks from Ground Zero. Run by a moderate Muslim, one of Osama bin Laden mortal enemies.
It's a miserably pathetic country.
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