To Infinity, and Beyond!

I agree with Newt Gingrich about something.

Mark this date on your calender, because this is obviously the beginning of the Apocalypse.

I kid. But, it's no exaggeration to say I have never before agreed with Newt Gingrich. I think he's loathsome and repugnant. He espouses family values while cheating on his wives, divorcing one of them as she battled cancer, and distancing himself from his gay sister. He advocates unnecessary wars and child labor, and--by suggesting that presidents should be able to call members of the judicial branch to answer for rulings with which the president disagrees--he threatens one of the very foundations on which our democracy is built. He is vile.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself agreeing with him about something. You see, like Newt Gingrich, I believe we--America and humanity in general--need to return to the moon. Now, Gingrich and I have very different reasons for wanting to return to the moon. He, in line with his Republican credentials, wants to strip mine it. He wants to do to the moon what we have spent centuries accomplishing on this planet--harvesting what we want/need with little regard for the future. I'll be the first to admit that maybe a giant rock without an atmosphere is not necessarily the most fragile environment in creation, but I'm still repulsed at the idea of expending time and treasure simply to rape another planet(oid).

So, while I think Gingrich is right about returning to the moon, I think he's right for the wrong reason. Why do I want us to return to the moon? Because it's there. Because we can. Because we should.

Call me an optimist, but I think one of humanity's greatest attributes is its willingness, its near-obligation, to explore and expand. This expansion has often resulted in the decimation of populations and to the exploitation of geographies and resources. But for all that human expansion has gotten wrong, there is still something fundamentally profound and pride-inducing about the Polynesians who explored the Pacific Ocean, the pioneers who sought out a Northwest Passage to China, about the men and women who have established lives and destinies in places as remote as Svalbard and the Falklands, to name only a fraction of the total. The human willingness to say, "I don't know what's over that hill, but I'm going to find out" is indicative of a spirit that defies and exceeds our ability to describe in words.

Now, I'm not saying that we can't get something out of space exploration. One of the many reasons I heard as a child for why the Amazonian rain forests needed to be preserved was that an untold number of medical treatments might be hidden in those forests. Is it too extraordinary an argument to suggest that something in the atmosphere of Venus might just cure a devastating disease here on Earth? Or that some unknown element or mineral in Mars' crust could provide clean, sustainable energy for generations? "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

But space exploration can give us so much more. What began as a race to conquer and militarize the heavens in 1957, and later devolved into an international pissing contest between two socioeconomic models of governance, is directly responsible for satellite television, cell phones, portable computers, and more. Learning how to get to the moon becomes by default a process of learning how to better get to the moon. The technologies and the engineering prowess that develops as a result are not always for mankind's benefit--look at Reagan's Star Wars project--but they can still be greatly beneficial. Who's to say what other technologies we might develop as we learn how to move further and further out into the stars? Teleportation? Interstellar communication? Faster-than-light transportation? Yes, it all sounds like impossibilities from a science fiction film, but the nature of science fiction is that it often becomes fact. My cell phone does what communication devices did for the crew of the Enterprise in the original "Star Trek," and it's even smaller.

Stop for a moment and consider films such as "2012," On the Beach," and "12 Monkeys," films in which billions die and the survival of the human race is at stake. What happens if, Heaven forbid, such a thing were to happen? Cataclysmic geological events, nuclear wars, and incurable plagues have the potential to eradicate all human life on this planet. Imagine for a moment the totality of that loss. All that we have been and all that we could ever be ceases to exist in that moment. It is pure science fiction at this moment to suggest establishing human colonies on the moon or on Mars, but consider the importance to the totality of human existence if, after the loss of all life on earth, a few thousand people survived on Mars. Humanity could go on. This argument, that steps must be taken to ensure the survival of the human being, is not new. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault on the island of Spitsbergen exists as a repository of various plant life in an effort to ensure mankind's survival in the face of a global catastrophe.

Finally, what of the possibility of life existing elsewhere? The presence of water is possibly indicative of the presence of life, and scientists have already established that there is water on our moon and on Europa, one of the Jovian moons. Consider the implications and the massive effects of the discovery of extraterrestrial life on our beliefs and on our supposed place in this universe. The discovery of even bacterial life on another planet is of profound importance, to say nothing of the possibility of finding, for example, fish living beneath the icy surface of Europa's frozen sea. Extraterrestrial life need not look like E.T. or Mr. Spock or (God help us) the "bugs" from "Starship Troopers" to qualify as the most tremendous discovery ever made in the history of humanity. The possibility that such a discovery might be made is reason enough to pursue that discovery until the day when/if we are proven to be the only life in the universe.

We as a people have already expended a great deal of time, material, treasure, and lives in the exploration of the cosmos. I am not so much of an optimist as to suggest that this would not also be the case in the future. Trillions of dollars would be spent to establish a base on Mars. Lives would be lost as fuel exploded on takeoff and capsules crash-landed on the surface of the moon. But lives have been lost in every ocean and sea on this planet. Lives have been extinguished at 30,000 feet when trans-Atlantic airliners have fallen from the sky. Lives and material must always be risked in any attempt to exceed our own capabilities. When the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded during reentry in 2003, one woman wrote to "Newsweek" asking why, when diseases like cancer continued to kill people on Earth, we should be spending so much money exploring elsewhere. I can only hope that were she to read this blog, she might be satisfied with my answer. If not, I can only offer these words from Buzz Aldrin:

"History will remember the inhabitants of [the twentieth] century as the people who went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in sixty-six years, only to languish for the next thirty in low-Earth orbit. At the core of the risk-free society is a self-indulgent failure of nerve."

Were I blessed with the opportunity to set foot on Mars or on the moon--opportunities for which I would gladly risk and sacrifice my life; to die on Mars is to have experienced at least a moment on its surface--the minerals beneath my feet would be the furthest thing from my mind. I would just be glad we got there. The promise of space exploration for any reason is not reason enough for me to ever vote for Newt Gingrich. But I hope those who win in 2012, and beyond that in 2016 and 2020 and 2024 will see the necessity and the near-inevitability of our exploration of the cosmos.

I Feel Old

I think my title basically says it all. But, I don't (just) feel old because I'm on the downward slope of my twenties. It's not (just) because I'm approaching the year 30 with not a little concern and trepidation. No, I feel old because I find myself living in a world which has aged me.

I get that life has always been one long stress test. I'm a "warts and all" kind of historian, so you won't find me pretending that there has ever been a golden age for humanity. When any group of people look back on some period as being their own personal golden age, their feelings are probably predicated on the fact that they exercised a great deal more socioeconomic/sociopolitical dominance in those times, with far less hindrances than they do now. So, in short, life has never been perfect, and I recognize that my being alive now has (hopefully) saved me from being executed in Elizabethan England, gassed in a Nazi concentration camp, or forced to live my life in fearful silence in 1950s America.

But I still feel old.

I am not one of these "Don't Tread On Me, America Hell Yeah!" kind of people. Quite the opposite. Yet despite this, and despite (or perhaps because of) my being a historian, I recognize in my mind a break between every moment in life before September 11, 2001 and every moment since. 9/11 occurred seventeen days before my nineteenth birthday, and just two weeks into my first semester as a college student. In many ways, I signify 9/11 as a pivotal moment in my maturation. It isn't really the moment at which I became "an adult," but for lack of a better descriptive term, that description should suffice. I think I was a pretty intelligent and aware guy up to that point: I had graduated with honors, I had done my senior research paper on the United States Supreme Court, and I had become very political during the 2000 Presidential Election, especially after my vote was stolen and an usurper became President of the United States of America. But for all my prior knowledge of politics and world affairs, 9/11 was and will always be a pivotal moment at which everything changed. It might very well have been similar to what eighteen year olds felt when Pearl Harbor was bombed, though I'm thankful I did not have to fear being drafted.

It may seem like I'm digressing, but I promise I'm not. What I'm trying to say here is that in some ways, I really do feel like my adulthood began on 9/11. And what has happened since? Eight years of President Bush. Unnecessary and unjust wars that have divided this country and squandered its wealth. American citizens left to suffer as their city slipped beneath the waves. Despots who have garnered votes by demonizing me and promising to keep me from being a full participant in this country. The continuation and strengthening of a mindset which attack intelligence and says that the ignorant, not the meek, shall inherit the earth. And they can have it, too, as the years since 9/11 have featured an increase in tornadoes, hurricanes, global warming, radiation leaks, and gas spills.

In short, I feel like too much has been pushed into too little a space of time. I think of 2007 in terms of decades passed rather than as a handful of years. I don't honestly know if this blog post is even meant to try and say something profound, or just give me an opportunity to put into words the sense of burnout and fatigue that I feel about life. (While also writing a new blog post for those [singular] who have requested that I keep writing.) Now, this isn't a cry for help. I have no intentions of doing anything stupid. But maybe this has as much to do with my feeling of age as any particular number reached in my longevity. Is it possible to reach a point where too much has happened in too short a period? Can one "collect" so many events in the form of memories, especially the bad and disheartening, that one feels like he is carrying the weight of a lifetime's memories?

Winter Moon by Dean Koontz

I haven't been blogging much, but I'm really going to try and write more, at least for the rest of the summer. Here's a book review I did for my wonderful friend Sara's literary blog, Inspired Quill. I'll be back to you with more reviews and more of my thoughts.

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Combining horror and science fiction can be a delicate endeavor. Science fiction can be used to parody reality, to show us our foibles and faults by showing us just how utopian our future can be, or how much more dystopian it can be if we aren’t careful. And horror, by reminding us of our own fears and mortality, is intense and even intensely fun. However, combining science fiction and horror creates a tightrope for any author to walk. The combination can quickly descend into the worst type of straight-to-DVD monstrosity--no pun intended--that Hollywood could ever hope to offer.

But have no fear, Dean Koontz does it well. I just finished reading his novel Winter Moon. Now, this isn’t Koontz’s newest work, and anyone who has read every one of his books might say it’s not his best, but it is the one I randomly purchased to help me kill a couple of hours before work one day last week. It’s a 472-page book, and by page 50 I knew I wanted to write a review of it for Inspired Quill.

In Winter Moon, husband and wife Jack and Heather aren’t living the perfect life. Far from it. Heather has been unemployed for almost a year, the city they and their son live in is becoming more and more dangerous every day, and, as the novel begins, police officer Jack suffers terrible injuries in the line of duty. Meanwhile, Eduardo, a retired widower living in rural Montana, realizes that something evil has begun in the nearby woods. A traveler from… some other place, some horrid place, has arrived in our world. Its mere presence produces terror almost tangible in its intensity. As Jack and Heather flee to Montana to escape the terrors of society’s devolution, they unwittingly approach a far greater terror than anything any human being can create.

I stopped reading Dean Koontz a few years back because I felt like I was reading the same novel over and over. But that is really only half-true. What I have discovered about Dean Koontz is that he’s a much better science fiction and horror novelist than a suspense novelist. This isn’t to say he can’t build suspense: I almost called in sick to work the other day because I couldn’t put this novel down. Rather, I’ve found Dean Koontz writes two types of novels: the science fiction/horror blend, and the sort of suspenseful, run-for-your-life survival novel that could happen to people in “the real world.” Examples of this include The Good Guy, The Husband, and Mr. Murder. Basically, it almost felt like Koontz was writing the same novel over and over.

When Koontz delves into the genres of science fiction and horror, as in works such as False Memory, Whispers, and Midnight, he’s a highly entertaining author. When he combines these two genres, as he did in Winter Moon and in the superlative The Taking--a present-day version of Noah's flood with both rain and monsters from the deepest levels of hell--he is a literary power to be reckoned with. This isn’t meant to be a love-fest. In fact, I feel like Winter Moon ended with a decidedly obvious lack of resolution, as if Koontz decided he was tired of writing the novel and was going to give himself an hour to finish it. Don’t let the absence of magic in the last two pages detract you, though. Winter Moon was an absorbing, engrossing read, and a testament to the skill and talent of this master of science fiction and horror.

Why Harold Camping is Bad for Faith

It's been a while, I know. Things got crazy with the end of the semester, my new job, and my grandfather passing. Here's my new piece for my school's newspaper. Hope you like it.

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Harold Camping, the evangelist and would-be Doomsday-prophesier, would like you to believe that he is a man of faith and belief, one who is so strong in his religious certitude that he can predict God’s plans for the end of the world down to the hour. And his faith--at least in himself if not necessarily in God--is so strong, he refuses to let his consistently poor track record deter him from making one Doomsday prediction after another. Having predicted a 1994 Doomsday that never came to pass, Camping then predicted the Rapture would occur last month, on the 21st. When 12:01 a.m. on the 22nd rolled around, Camping was nowhere to be found, until a short time ago, when he predicted the Rapture will actually occur this October 21st.

When you’ve been off by seventeen years, what’s five months?

Across the world, most people, both atheists and religionists of many faiths, saw Harold Camping for the crackpot that he is. I agree. I think he’s out of his mind, and it saddens and scares me that so many people quit their jobs, cashed out their savings, or otherwise irrevocably altered their lives because they believed this man’s delusions. But I’m not writing this piece to badmouth his now disappointed--and once more expectantly anticipatory--flock. I’m writing this piece because I don’t like the harm this supposedly religious man has done to spirituality.

I’m a believer, but that is the beginning and the end of what I’m prepared to say about my spirituality. As far as I’m concerned, faith is a private thing which should be shared with no larger a group than your family, close friends, and your congregation, should you happen to be a member of a church, mosque, temple, or other holy institution. Religious debates and discussions are interesting, even necessary, but actual public assertions of belief have always embarrassed me. I have even struggled at times with the idea of saying Grace before eating in a restaurant. Doesn’t the Bible say it is better to pray alone in one’s heart than to make a show of it before your neighbors?

But enough about my beliefs, or about the nature of worship. What I do want to say here is that, for all the mistakes that organized religion and fundamentalist beliefs have made and continue to make, I think that spirituality is ultimately a very beneficial thing. It provides believers with something that little else in this world can. I dislike and will loudly denigrate those who, by acts of terrorism or by picketing funerals, attempt to force their beliefs on others. But as to a private self-assertion of belief that helps one deal with the loss of a loved one, or with an illness, or with feelings of loneliness, I think that spirituality is a fundamentally good and powerful force.

But not an all-powerful force. Faith is malleable. For many, it ebbs and flows. It can be a tremendously fragile thing, even for those who seem to have the most to spare. Take, for instance, the man in Camping’s ministry who was being interviewed as the clock struck 6 p.m. on May 21st. Joyful expectation turned to a sad bewilderment very quickly. According to the reporter, the man kept looking at his watch, quietly muttering over and over, “I don’t understand.” As happy as I was to still be alive, my heart went out to those who had put their faith in the hands of a charlatan.

Will the world end someday? I’m prepared to bet my entire savings account it will. Whether from the Rapture, or a nuclear war, or the scientific inevitability that our sun will someday explode or burn out, this mortal coil is just that--mortal. But nobody can be certain about the how and when. Belief and faith can get us through the perilous unknowns of life, but it cannot give us some sort of psychic skill that enables us to see life’s hardships coming. Camping insists he has read the Bible from cover to cover, but he seems to have missed the part that said God--and only God--knows when the world is going to end. For Camping to suggest that he knows when the world will end, even when he has clearly shown he’s just swinging his bat at a small ball in a dark room, is the worst sort of religious fundamentalism.

Spiritual beliefs are funny in that they exist in a constant state of ambiguity. They can be so strong and so fragile, and so beneficial and so detrimental, all at the same time. I’m hoping that as October 21st approaches, this time, no one will give men like Camping the opportunity to inflict any more spiritual damage.

The Choice Between Healthcare & War

It seems that anytime you turn on the television these days, unless you purposely and stringently do everything you can to avoid it, you end up hearing something said by someone about one of two things: money and medicine, or, more specifically, America’s financial difficulties and Medicare. We have been hearing about money issues for three years now, ever since the economic crisis of 2008, and we have become familiar with debates and arguments about healthcare since President Obama attempted to reform it in 2009. Now, the two have merged in the form of Republican calls for the government to slash funding to Medicare as an austerity measure that will, they say, ultimately help our economy.

I am not an economics major, and math has always been my least favorite subject, but I am prepared to go out on a limb and suggest that the Republicans may be right. If the government stops spending money on Medicare, then the government will have more money. It is simple logic: if I don’t spend the $20 in my wallet on books, then I have saved that $20 for something else. (I acknowledge that the intricacies of our massive economy are far more complicated, but, again, I am not an economist.)

But say that instead of spending that $20 on books for my education, or because I consider reading an enjoyable past time, I end up spending that $20 on gumballs. Many people, myself included, might think I wasted the money I supposedly saved by buying something so unnecessary and counter to my short- and long-term needs. In short, the $20 will eventually be spent, the only question is on what.

So, while cutting government funding to Medicare might actually save the government money, I am left wondering just what we might spend that money on, and what we already spend our money on. There is a lot of talk in Washington, D.C. about cutting spending “hither, thither, and yon.” We are continually being told that “nothing is off the table” including entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Every now and again, someone might suggest cutting defense spending, but more often than not, we hear vociferous exclamations that defense spending cannot be touched.

In short, cuts to government funded healthcare are permissible to solve our current financial troubles, but cuts to defense spending-- to our ability to build weapons, train soldiers to invade foreign countries, launch spy satellites--are anathema to the American government’s psyche.

America’s latest war--if you are having trouble keeping up with our war-making, I am talking about our war in Libya--began on March 19th of this year. On the first day of American aerial bombardment, 110 Tomahawk missiles were fired into Libya. At a construction cost of $600,000 each, those 110 missiles cost America $66,000,000. That is just construction cost, and not the cost of maintenance, storage, or the cost of training people to build, maintain, and launch these weapons. That’s $66,000,000 for one day of a war many Americans probably do not understand or want us to be a part of.

Meanwhile, as part of so-called austerity cuts, Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona cut state funding to a program that paid for organ transplants for people who needed them but could not afford them. Brewer insisted that, though she regretted the necessity of cutting this funding, it was imperative that she do so in order to save Arizona’s economy.

For $66,000,000, 83 people could receive a heart transplant, 126 people could receive a liver transplant, 146 people could receive a single lung transplant, and 254 people could receive a kidney transplant. Assuming for just a moment that we had the necessary number of organs available, the American government could have saved hundreds of American lives on March 19th. Instead, we spent that money on another unnecessary war.

As the airwaves continue to be filled with often acrimonious back-and-forth arguments about the state of our economy and the need to cut such programs as Planned Parenthood, Medicare, and organ transplants for those without medical insurance, to say nothing of the continuing cuts to education, infrastructure, and the arts, we as a society are left with a choice. We are rapidly approaching a moment in time where we will have to decide who and what we want to be. Will we allow programs that care for the sick and the elderly to be crippled or destroyed while we can continue to make war across the world? Any society willing to sacrifice its citizens to ensure its military might is a society that cannot stand.

US Intelligence Veteran Defends Bradley Manning And WikiLeaks – OpEd

US Intelligence Veteran Defends Bradley Manning And WikiLeaks – OpEd