Posted
2/8/2003 10:41:32 AM
by Edward Driscoll
ARE THE FRENCH BEGINNING TO WOBBLE? Andrew Sullivan spots a thin beam of reality visible in Le Monde.
Posted
2/8/2003 10:37:48 AM
by Edward Driscoll
WELL WORTH SUBSCRIBING TO: Hollywood Foreign Policy Review magazine
(From the folks who brought you...Soldier of Surrender magazine!)
Posted
2/7/2003 09:42:02 PM
by Edward Driscoll
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Best of the Web Today reports that at a recent Washington Press Club Foundation congressional dinner:
John McCain, Republican maverick, former POW and Vietnam War hero, cracked in his speech that if "Washington is a Hollywood for ugly people," then, considering the remarks coming out of Tinseltown about Iraq, "Hollywood is a Washington for the simpleminded."Considering what P.J. O'Rourke once said about the Senate, those are biting remarks indeed.
Posted
2/7/2003 07:33:29 PM
by Edward Driscoll
RACIAL PARODY IN THE NFL: Don Banks of Sports Illustrated shows some common sense regarding the Detroit Lions, and their seeming flaunting of the NFL's Faustian bargain with Johnnie Cochran:
Lions sources say they approached five different black potential candidates and all five declined to interview, saying that the job already appeared to be Mariucci's to lose and they didn't want to take part in any sham interview process. That's fair enough, and it was even a development that was predicted by many once former Vikings head coach Dennis Green declined to interview. As for Matt Millen, the Lions president/CEO, he was apparently honest enough to admit to each potential candidate that Mariucci was far and away his leading candidate. Millen has nothing to apologize for, since the Mariucci hiring made all kinds of sense for Detroit, and he did say in a news conference after firing Marty Mornhinweg that a variety of candidates would be sought. The problem is, nobody really believed Millen because of the transparent circumstances of the Lions dumping Mornhinweg only after Mariucci became available, despite a month ago claiming that Mornhinweg's job was safe. The system, it seems, would have "worked" better had Millen been disingenuous enough to convince at least one candidate to go through the interview process believing he was on equal footing with Mariucci. Fairly or not, sometimes that's the way things work in the real world. Sometimes there's one overwhelming candidate who can't help but turn everybody else's candidacies into nothing but a fallback option. No matter how you spin it. That's what happened this year in Dallas with Bill Parcells, and that's what happened in Detroit with Mariucci. It's hard for me to understand how the minority watchdog groups are furthering their cause by trying to have it both ways. If minority candidates are asked to be part of the interview process, and decline, they lessen the impact of their voices when they turn around and complain about being left out of the equation. Yes, even if they believe the process was flawed to begin with.While Banks doesn't connect the dots, right below that is a subhead about all of the money that the Lions had to shell out to land "Mooch":
If you're wondering why Detroit seemingly overpaid Mariucci by giving him a five-year, $25 million annual salary, thus tying him with Washington's Steve Spurrier as the NFL's only $5-million-per-year coaches, it's simple, really. Think of it as live-in-Detroit money. Mariucci had all the leverage. The Lions had to land him, and couldn't afford to take any chances. Thus they had to make him an overwhelming offer in order for him to get past his family's reservations about leaving the San Francisco bay area that they adored for the cold and gray of Michigan.The black coaches who declined to interview with the Lions seem to have a short memory. If the Lions and Mariucci couldn't have come to terms on a contract, they would have been in the same position as Tampa Bay and Bill Parcels last year. Mariucci--as Parcels did--would spend a year in the TV booth, and the Lions would have been scrambling to find a replacement, and at that point, Denny Green would be a perfect fit. They have only themselves to blame for not being interviewed, and Cochran, Jesse Jackson and company should be at least as angry with them, as with the Lions--if not more so.
Posted
2/7/2003 03:24:09 PM
by Edward Driscoll
IS BILL RICHARDSON A SUPPLY-SIDER? He certainly sounds that way, based on his early tax-cutting moves as the new governor of New Mexico.
Gray Davis, take note.
Posted
2/7/2003 12:52:10 PM
by Edward Driscoll
MILLER TIME: The Wall Street Journal reports that "not everyone in Hollywood is pro-Saddam."
For our previous coverage of Dennis Miller, click here.
Posted
2/7/2003 12:45:40 PM
by Edward Driscoll
TWO FROM SULLIVAN: I was going to highlight this classic juxtaposition from his Raines Watch department, but I'd be remiss in not pointing out the post below it regarding Pat Tillman.
Posted
2/7/2003 12:36:07 PM
by Edward Driscoll
GLIMMERS OF HOPE FOR THE MEDIA: Tom Brokaw told David Letterman how people in Iraq “are afraid to say anything because the wrong thing gets them not only in trouble, but probably executed":
Brokaw related how when he was in Baghdad in December, a man approached him and in a loud voice praised Saddam Hussein and promised to fight American invaders, but in a quiet voice he expressed hope that the Americans would arrive before Christmas since “we'll be very happy to have them come here as quickly as possible.”(Apparently, no one told NBC's Ann Curry this, however) Meanwhile, CBS reporter Bob Simon actually called Tony Benn, a left-wing former member of the British parliament who interviewed Saddam Hussein recently for British TV, "a British lefty". As Brent Baker of the Media Research Center writes, "Now that's the first time I can recall a CBS News reporter using the label 'lefty', especially in a derogatory way." We bash the media a lot here, so when they get things as important as these are right, we do like to give them compliments as well.
Posted
2/7/2003 12:21:13 PM
by Edward Driscoll
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Cal State Fresno is holding a closed conference on radical environmentalism, complete with speakers from eco-terrorist organizations such as Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front.
Arthur Silber has a phone number at Cal State to call to state your opinion...
Posted
2/7/2003 12:16:27 PM
by Edward Driscoll
AN ODE TO DOGMA: Jonah Goldberg wonders why people (very, very dumb people) confuse America with the Soviet Union:
In Saddam's tin-pot Stalinist torture chamber, the nation is a tool for Saddam's will to power. If the inspectors find a cache of chemical weapons, Saddam cannot claim "rogue elements" in his government acted independently and lied to him — because in his government, rogues, mavericks, freethinkers, and independent spirits of any kind are put to death, often after having seen their families murdered first. The only reigning dogma is to please the master and stay alive. Such is the way of all totalitarian regimes, be they Saddamite or Stalinist. In America, rogues and freethinkers get TV shows, endowed chairs, and attaboys. If you can't see how profound a difference that is, your problem is your own dogma, not America's.Exactly.
Posted
2/7/2003 11:13:17 AM
by Edward Driscoll
THIS WOULD BE AMUSING TO WATCH: MSNBC is apparently courting Michael Savage. Savage (who's on Bay Area radio during the afternoon drive time) makes Rush Limbaugh sound like Noel Coward.
It's a shame that the mainstream media invariably go after the blowhards for TV, while more nuanced conservative and libertarian speakers remain in print, or radio. Somebody should get Michael Medved back on TV, or get Virginia Postrel, Walter Williams (who was sitting in for Rush today, as I drove to the office) or Nick Schulz a show.
...Or that InstaPundit fellow. Heck, MSNBC's half way home--he's already got his own Web page there!
Posted
2/6/2003 10:35:00 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THE THREE STOOGES: "Rumsfeld puts Germany with Libya and Cuba".
Posted
2/6/2003 04:11:39 PM
by Edward Driscoll
LEGAL TYRANNIES: Duane Freese of Tech Central Station has an excellent piece on the dangers of trial lawyers, and their increasing drag on the economy:
In the 1950s, though, Congress shed a light on the mafia. It can do the same now on the trial bar. America was lucky in the 1990s. High technology was able to bring about vast improvements in productivity and produce a boom. The massive torts at the end of the 1990s, though, may now be one big reason the economy has found it hard for the current recovery to gain traction.Read the whole thing.
Posted
2/6/2003 01:16:25 PM
by Edward Driscoll
TOTAL RECALL: John Fund and Arnold Steinberg (who has successfully recalled two California politicians) have additional thoughts on the efforts to recall Gray Davis.
Posted
2/6/2003 12:12:05 PM
by Edward Driscoll
AN ASININE PLEA FROM PETA: PETA is busy writing letters to Yassar Arafat, to stop the killing...of donkeys.
Kerry Doughtery of The Virginian Pilot writes that on January 26, a bomb exploded on the road between Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Gush Etzion:
As terror attacks go, this one was minor. Most of us didn't hear about it because, with the exception of one bus passenger treated for shock, no one was injured. Thank God. Palestinian terrorists delivered the bomb to its destination by donkey. They strapped explosives and a remote device to the animal and detonated the bomb by cell phone as an Israeli bus passed by. The donkey, of course, was killed. You know where this is going, don't you? That's right. PETA, the group that never before expressed concern about the carnage in Israel, is suddenly outraged. All because a donkey died. Never mind that, according to the Israeli embassy, which keeps track of such grim statistics, 729 Israelis have perished in terrorist attacks since September 2000.It gets worse from there. Leave it to PETA to address Yassar Arafat as "Your excellency." UPDATE: Reader Chuck Simmins emailed to mention that a famous celebrity also has some thoughts on the limits of mule warfare.
Posted
2/6/2003 12:03:27 PM
by Edward Driscoll
NO WONDER HIS PALMS ARE SO HAIRY: Robert Fisk...Fisks himself.
Posted
2/6/2003 11:00:26 AM
by Edward Driscoll
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GIPPER: Ronald Reagan celebrates his 92nd birthday today. For a look at what the 1960s and 1970s were like prior to his election, click here and here. For thoughts on his presidency, click here and here.
Posted
2/5/2003 05:43:14 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT A KILLER I AM!" Did Willie Brown, the mayor of San Francisco, threaten to kill a city supervisor?
Trotsky and Stalin they're not, but this SF Gate article is a riot. Link found via Tim Cavanaugh of Reason, who writes, "people frequently ask why anybody would live in a city with a mostly Maoist Board of Supervisors. It's a good question, but...San Fran is one of the last places in America where they still know how to do politics".
Posted
2/5/2003 02:19:51 PM
by Edward Driscoll
IT WORKED FOR BRUCE WAYNE, who once said, "Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot, so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts, " and chose to become Batman. This Marine has a different disguise to strike terror into the heart of a truly arch criminal.
Posted
2/5/2003 02:16:06 PM
by Edward Driscoll
CLIFF NOTES: Sgt. Stryker boils Powell at the UN down to its very essense.
Posted
2/5/2003 02:12:37 PM
by Edward Driscoll
RAY RHODES TO COACH SEAHAWKS' DEFENSE: AP reports "The hiring will reunite Rhodes with Seahawks head coach Mike Holmgren. They held the same jobs together in Green Bay from 1992-93".
Posted
2/5/2003 01:23:37 PM
by Edward Driscoll
BLIX HAS FINALLY FOUND ACTUAL WMDS, in a surprisingly remote location.
Posted
2/5/2003 11:53:05 AM
by Edward Driscoll
POST-LIBERATED IRAQ: Bruce Fein has some thoughts, as does Stephen Green (who, along with National Review's The Corner, did real-time blogging of Powell's speech to the League of Nations UN today.
See also this photo and post from September of 2002 by John Bono.
Posted
2/5/2003 09:29:30 AM
by Edward Driscoll
ARE THE MEDIA BIASED? Brent Bozell and Eric Alterman(!) slug it out in two side by side essays on National Review Online. It's too bad the essays are probably written blindly. Alterman stresses the importance of footnotes, and has six of them. It would have been fun to see Bozell respond by saying, Eric, "here are mine".
Posted
2/5/2003 12:26:15 AM
by Edward Driscoll
SAVED BY ILLNESS: Norman Mineta is the Bush cabinet member that Bush fans love to hate. And he was almost fired this fall, until illness struck. Robert Novak writes:
According to high-level administration sources, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta was to follow former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill as the second Cabinet member to be fired by President Bush until illness landed him in Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Mineta, a 71-year-old former congressman from California, is the only Democrat in Bush's Cabinet. He was saved from dismissal when a staph infection followed surgery last August to relieve persistent back pain, hospitalizing him for several weeks. He was operated on again Jan. 24, and remains at Walter Reed at this writing. Although Transportation officials say Mineta runs the department from his hospital bed, the work is really being done by Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson (a protege and former aide of White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card).I'm sorry to see him ailing, but after his bungling of airport security post-9/11, I won't be sad to see him step down.
Posted
2/4/2003 11:12:52 PM
by Edward Driscoll
I DOUBT THIS WILL AMOUNT TO MUCH, but Gray Davis is the target of a California recall effort, according to the Washington Times.
Posted
2/4/2003 07:49:34 PM
by Edward Driscoll
KOBAYASHI MARU: Even if NASA knew that Columbia was damaged as soon as it reached orbit, there was no way to prevent what happened on Saturday, according to this New York Times article, which runs through a variety of scenerios, each of which come up snake-eyes.
Posted
2/4/2003 04:37:50 PM
by Edward Driscoll
I JUST UPDATED the post on the EPA's possible role in the Columbia crash here.
Posted
2/4/2003 02:56:35 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THIS IS CNN: Lead anchor Aaron Brown was caught in a golf tournament, and "did not appear [on TV] until 10 p.m. on Sunday, more than 36 hours after the news of the shuttle catastrophe broke."
Meanwile, in Nacogdoches:
Some of the reporters who have descended on this town of 29,000 people are not shy about throwing their weight around. Ashleigh Banfield, a well-recognized reporter from MSNBC, berated a desk clerk at a downtown hotel as every room in the region was being rented. "I have five rooms on the executive floor," she steamed. "I want my reservation honored." In the men's room of the hotel bar, a guy at a urinal laughed, saying, "These reporters are jerks." He was the only nonreporter relieving himself.
Posted
2/4/2003 01:37:23 PM
by Edward Driscoll
OLD EUROPE: "France is no longer the ally it once was," [Richard] Perle said. And he went on to accuse French President Jacques Chirac of believing "deep in his soul that Saddam Hussein is preferable to any likely successor."
(Perle is a former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration and now chairman of the Pentagon's Policy Advisory Board.)
I don't know what the proper analogy for France and Germany are. We rebuilt them after World War II, and continue to provide their defense, so, rebellious children? Cranky grandparents? Axis of Weasels? Or maybe just...Old Europe.
UPDATE: Stephen Green writes, "Anyone know the French for 'howling'? Because we're going to be hearing a lot of it.
Posted
2/4/2003 12:55:54 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"THIS COUNTRY IS OUR HOME NOW": My wife had a great moment while getting her nails done today: the manicurist, who immigrated here from Vietnam, was so happy to have had the chance to have visited NYC and the WTC just a few months before the "terrible thing" on 9/11. "I was so lucky to be able to see those buildings. This country is our home now, we love it so much."
Posted
2/4/2003 12:50:41 PM
by Edward Driscoll
INTERESTING CHOICE OF WORDS: Check out the opening paragraph of this AP article, which Matt Drudge linked to:
Warning Iraq that it's "five minutes to midnight," Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix pleaded with the Iraqi government Tuesday to show that it is actively cooperating during his visit this weekend by producing evidence about its weapons programs.So for Blix, regime change is "midnight"--implying that it will get darker if the US attacks Iraq and replaces the current dictatorship with a democratic--or at least more liberal--regime? Of course, for the stasist UN, any change, even one for the better, is probably "midnight". UPDATE: We'd like to think that soon, it will be morning in Iraq (to coin a phrase). And the pieces are rapidly fitting into place to allow that to happen.
Posted
2/4/2003 11:03:04 AM
by Edward Driscoll
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: More from Joanne Jacobs, who writes, "Protester's sign at York University in Toronto, where Daniel Pipes spoke under tight security: 'We are here in the name of academic freedom. We don't like what Pipes has to say and it's our right to try and stop him from speaking.'"
Winston Smith, call your office.
Posted
2/4/2003 09:38:39 AM
by Edward Driscoll
CONGRATULATIONS TO PATRICK AND THE FUTURE MRS. RUFFINI! "The nuptials will be taking place in the late spring of 2004. A wedding blog is under active consideration", Patrick writes, adding that apparently it was his stylish and pithy Website that swayed his fiance.
No matter how stylish it is, as someone wrote in his comments section, leave the honeymoon blog "completely off the table"!
Posted
2/4/2003 09:02:40 AM
by Edward Driscoll
"PLETHORIC AND DISTRESSED": Joanne Jacobs, with an assist from Juan Gato, is all over Mark Morford of SFGate.com (The San Francisco Chronicle's Web site) and his turgid "backwards ran the sentences until reeled the mind" prose:
You may think you've encountered bad thinking. You may think you've read bad writing. But never have the two been combined to such mind-rotting effect as in Mark Morford's SFGate column in which he purports to explain why Shrub and "black eyed" Rumsfeld are hoping to kill 500,000 innocents in a "rubbly, pissant, nonthreatening" country. (He's referring to Iraq.)Doesn't Morford think that the Iraqi people deserve more than to live in a rubbly, pissant, nonthreatening country? UPDATE: Mike at ColdFury.com also has some thougts.
Posted
2/4/2003 08:51:34 AM
by Edward Driscoll
DID ENVIRONMENTALISM KILL COLUMBIA? Follow the links provided by InstaPundit.
UPDATE: And be sure to read this article in the San Jose Mercury News:
In his 1997 report, Katnik noted that the 1997 mission, STS-87, was the first to use a new method of ``foaming'' the tanks, one designed to address NASA's goal of using environmentally friendly products. The shift came as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was ordering many industries to phase out the use of Freon, an aerosol propellant linked to ozone depletion and global warming. As recently as last September, a retired engineering manager for Lockheed Martin, the contractor that assembles the tanks, told a conference in New Orleans that developing a new foam to meet environmental standards had ``been much more difficult than anticipated.'' The retired Lockheed engineer, who helped design the thermal protection system, said the switch from a foam based on Freon -- also known as CFC-11 -- has ``resulted in unanticipated program impacts, such as foam loss during flight.'' In fact, he noted, the hits to Columbia on that 1997 mission, the same one Katnik studied, forced NASA to replace nearly 11 times more damaged tiles than it had after a previous mission that had used Freon-based foam. Lockheed spokesman Harry Wadsworth said Monday that the company was referring questions to NASA. ``I cannot talk about any past problems with foam or the history of foam,'' he said. ``We're not talking about the investigation.''Way to go, Carol Browner (and Bill Clinton). (Link to Mercury article via Stephen Green, who has more, here.)
Posted
2/4/2003 08:47:11 AM
by Edward Driscoll
THE JOHN KERRY/CHINATOWN CONNECTION, as discovered by Orrin Judd.
Posted
2/4/2003 08:30:54 AM
by Edward Driscoll
MOOCH GOING TO MOTOWN: Steeve Mariucci is set to become the next head coach of the Detroit Lions, according to Len Pasquarelli of ESPN.com, who says, "the Detroit Lions and Steve Mariucci have reached agreement on all of the major components of a five-year contract, and that the deal should be completed Tuesday with an introductory press conference likely Wednesday."
Hopefully Mooch will do better as an ex-Niner than George Seifert did.
UPDATE: Hiring the man who rebuilt the 'Niners into a consistent playoff team after their several years of salary cap hell isn't going to please Johnnie Cochran:
The Lions have only interviewed Mariucci for the job. That has drawn strong criticism from Cochran and civil rights attorney Cyrus Mehri. The NFL mandates franchises interview minority candidates for head coach and high-ranking front office positions. "The Lions have seriously threatened to undermine and potentially violate the new NFL minority hiring policy approved by team owners in December," Cochran and Mehri said in a statement. "Prior to conducting a single interview, general manager Matt Millen essentially crowned Steve Mariucci as the Lions' new head coach. He might well have put up a sign at Lions headquarters reading, 'Head Coaching Vacancy: Minorities Need Not Apply.'" According to the Detroit Free Press, the Lions approached five minority candidates, including former Minnesota Vikings coach Dennis Green and Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Tim Lewis, but they were rejected because Mariucci was the obvious front-runner. Sherman Lewis, who was named the Lions' offensive coordinator last month, denied a report that he interviewed for the job. The hiring of Mariucci figures to be a popular one with Lions fans. Detroit has not made the playoffs since 1999. Mariucci took the Niners to the postseason four times in six years.Rich Lowry explained why Cochran seemingly must sign off on all coaching changes in his January 6th column.
Posted
2/3/2003 11:03:47 AM
by Edward Driscoll
PHIL SPECTOR TAKEN INTO CUSTODY IN CONNECTION WITH HOMICIDE, according to this L.A. NBC affiliate article. Spector produced superstar musical acts such as Ike and Tina Turner, the Righteous Brothers the Ronnettes, as well as Let It Be, the last release by the Beatles, and solo albums by George Harrison and John Lennon.
UPDATE: I posted the above infomation on Blogcritics. Eric Olsen has added to it a detailed biography of Spector. Be sure to check it out.
Posted
2/3/2003 12:31:55 AM
by Edward Driscoll
THE MONEY QUOTE: Why not just let robots explore space? James Lileks explains why in typical (he's the real Svengali of style) fashion:
NPR had an interview with one of those people who think we should not send people into space, but rely entirely on robots. As I pulled into the parking lot at the mall he casually asked “what can a man do on Mars that a robot cannot?” PLANT A F***ING FLAG ON THE PLANET, I shouted at the radio. Pardon my language. But. On a day when seven brave people died while fulfilling their brightest ambitions, this was the wrong day to suggest we all stay tethered to the dirt until the sun grows cold. Are we less than the men who left safe harbors and shouldered through cold oceans? After all, they sailed into the void; we can look up at the night sky and point at where we want to go. There: that bright white orb. We’re going. There: that red coal burning on the horizon. We’re going. And we’re not sending smart toys on our behalf - we’re sending human beings, and one of them will put his boot on the sand and bring the number of worlds we’ve visited to three. And when he plants the flag he will use flesh and sinew and blood and bone to drive it into the ground. His heartbeat will hammer in his ears; his mind will spin a kaleidoscopic medley of all the things he’d thought he’d think at this moment, and he'll grin: I had it wrong. I had no idea what it would truly be like. He’d imagined this moment as oddly private; he'd thought of himself, the red land, the flag in his hand, and he heard music, as though the moment would be fully scored when it happened. But there isn't any music; there's the sound of his breath and the thrum of his pulse. It seems like everyone who ever lived is standing behind him at the other end of a vast dark auditorium, waiting for the flag to stand on the ground of Mars. Then he will say something. He might stumble on a word or two, because he’s only human. But look what humans have done. Again.Scott Ott also put the "send in the 'bots" talk into perspective in his own inimitable way.
Posted
2/2/2003 02:10:21 PM
by Edward Driscoll
BLOW BY BLOW: John Hawkins links to this thread on Free Republic.com. One of the "Freepers" started a thread simply to announce that the Shuttle would be visible in the San Francisco area on early Saturday morning as it landed. The thread then moves from lighthearted banter, to the eerie moment when the shuttle is first silent, to the heartsinking reality that it's lost.
Posted
2/2/2003 12:35:25 PM
by Edward Driscoll
ABOUT YESTERDAY: This is going to be very self-indulgent, and I’m posting it as much to remember in six months or a year, some of the details of what yesterday morning felt like.
On Friday, Patrick Ruffini very, very graciously dubbed me "the Svengali of style", but I'm afraid what I posted yesterday was anything but. A friend was visiting us the night before and stayed over, someone who works very, very close to the WTC. The three of us went out to dinner the night before, stayed up late, got up too early the next morning to make sure that flights were made, and at 7:45, I walked into the den, only to be told by wife and grieving friend that the space shuttle Columbia had disintegrated.
There was an instant message window on my computer, which I didn't get a chance to respond to (I think my wife did, however), from "Group Captain Mandrake", the very same person who called to wake us on 9/11. At that point, it's deja vu all over again: my wife and I, in the den, each on our PCs, which face our TV, with its picture in picture activated to watch both Fox News and CNN, and flipping back and forth between the two.
It was fairly obvious to me though, that this was not 9/11 redux: these were seven people who knew the risks they were taking (and space, particularly during launch and reentry is a very, very risky business, and will be for a very long time). There's very little chance--if any--of terrorism involved. Arthur C. Clarke once said the Space Shuttle was like the DC-3 of space--only worse. "It's the DC-1 and 1/2 of space", I recall him telling Playboy in 1986 or '87 (and he's used that line in other interviews). "It's got to work its guts out to get into orbit", he added. And now, over 15 years later, it's just worn out--the design is nearly 30 years old, and the airframes (spaceframes?) of the two remaining orbiters are around twenty years old.
But like 9/11--and the Challenger--this will be another day where everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. On the morning that Challenger exploded, I was driving through Bristol, Pennsylvania to my afternoon classes at the College of New Jersey (then known less portentously as Trenton State College) in my IROC (it was the 1980s, of course) and flipping back and forth between the Philadelphia rock stations of 93.3 WMMR and 94.1 WYSP. I forget which station from whose DJ I actually heard the news from first, but my first thought was "well, of course the crew got out safely, right?" This was NASA, after all: unparalleled, even with the exception of Apollo 1, for their safety record.
Yesterday, when my wife informed me of Columbia, and I saw the footage, I knew the crew was dead instantly.
This was NASA, after all.
So I sat at the computer, while our friend wept and my wife did lots of consoling, and blogged for dear life. If the stuff I posted yesterday sounded a bit mechanical, with lots of links to other people, but very little commentary, it reflected how my brain was functioning that morning.
Unlike newspapers or all-news channels, Blogs are very wobbly machines, usually run by a single person, or a handful of people, in their spare time, or as an adjunct to their main work. Even if it wasn’t very stylish, hopefully we pointed you to some people whose opinions were far sharper (and far more knowledgeable about the current state of NASA) than mine. If so, I’d like think we did our job, even if it was about unstylish as a train wreck.
Or a shuttle crash.
Posted
2/2/2003 12:34:53 PM
by Edward Driscoll
FALLEN STAR:
(Found via Little Green Footballs, which also has the sad photo of one of the astronaut's helmets, as it was found in a Texas backyard.
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