For a news junkie, Donald Trump and his grotesque posse of clowns, deadly sociopaths, and carnival shills can, at times, cause serious emotional and intellectual overloads. Befuddled hopelessness, dread, and outright rage cause a wide range of visceral and mental disfunction. The synapses in the brain begin to flicker ominously, then finally short circuit.
This past week even Melania Trump climbed onto the ride. Unexpectedly, apparently even to her husband, she showed up at a press conference to tell everyone she didn't know Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Not only that but she had no idea what they had been doing and she had never broken any laws in her life. She also called for Congress to allow the victims to testify under oath so their personal horror stories could be put in the public record.
It didn't seem to matter to her that no one in the mainstream media had ever accused her of anything like that. Or, that the nation's entire news industry had shifted its focus to the war in Iran and for the last month plus hadn't talked about Epstein and his co-predator. Why did she do it now or at all? Was she responding to internet rumors? Was she getting back at her husband for letting Stormy Daniels whack his bare ass with a rolled-up magazine? And more darkly, had Don screwed up the war in Iran so badly, was she was trying to shift attention away from it? In other words, was her presser held to distract from the original distraction?
It was a scene too weird and inexplicable for a rational mind to process. When coupled with everything else going on, brains began to shut down--causing some of us to stand and scream, "WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?"
Thankfully, in the midst of this chaos, on Friday evening we caught a break.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. They were the first human beings to ever step foot on a celestial body that we don't call Earth. For many, like myself--I got my first telescope in 1959--it was an event straight out of science fiction. Suddenly all the things we saw in Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, which had been released the year before, seemed on the verge of happening. At the time I told friends, with complete certainty, that by the year 2000, the United States would have a permanent presence on the moon. Despite a war in SE Asia going horribly sideways, for a little while the country was euphoric. Other nations actually admired us. No one needed to tell Americans why we should be proud. We all knew exactly why we were.
A little over three years after Apollo 11 landed on the moon, Apollo 17's crew left it in December 1972. We didn't go back for over a half century.
The Artemis II crew didn't land on the moon, but they did major prep work for that landing to take place. planned landing will pave the way for the overdue moon base I thought would be there 26 years ago. In addition, the four member team travelled further from this planet than anyone ever has before. When they splashed down in the Pacific Friday, after a nerve jangling six-minute radio blackout, for a brief moment it was 1969 all over again. The cable news networks turned away from all the madness for a wonderful instant and focused on what we could accomplish together rather than what divides us and turns us all, to one degree or another, into raging political beasts hell bent on destroying those we oppose.
The Artemis II mission wasn't completely without controversy. A few of the perpetually irate and put upon MAGA types complained one of the crew members, Jeremy Hansen, was Canadian. There was also the ever present conspiracy mongers who claimed, just as they have since Armstrong and Aldrin made the trip, the whole mission was faked. However, these groups were so small and insignificant, hardly anyone noticed them.
Yes, Artemis II was a success. More importantly it was a success that crossed political boundaries when we needed it the most.
Tragically, the glory and unity were fleeting. The day after the splashdown, Donald Trump announced he would use U.S. warships to close off the Strait of Hormuz. That would be the same bottle neck of water that he demanded Iran to open up last week. If they didn't, he had bellowed, their, "entire civilization would die." There are also reports the President now wants the Persian Gulf to be renamed to--you guessed it--The Gulf of Trump.
Indeed, the chaos and insanity have returned. These days it doesn't take long.
4-12-26
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