Let All The Children Boogie

There's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
There's a starman waiting in the sky
He's told us not to blow it
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile

Starman, David Bowie ("The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust"), 1972.

 Ah, Facebook...

"Earthrise" is a photograph taken by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders on December 24, 1968. It depicts our planet coming into view as the spacecraft's orbit takes it from the far side of the Moon.

Beautiful blue and elegant, it was called "The most influential environmental photograph ever taken" by adventurer Galen Rowell. One can easily conclude that, despite petty bickering, we share an elegant and unique place in the universe. Preserving what we have, finite and delicate as it is, should be a priority over destruction and disaster.

It was also thought to put at least one thing - that the Earth is flat - to bed. That notion, of course, is cute.

Someone posted Earthrise on FB. The reason they did so is lost in what happened next. The thread was taken over by individuals, many especially exorcised and impassioned, alleging that the Moon landings of Apollo 11 and 12 were faked. Also 14-17. No human being has ever landed on the Moon, they screeched. One poor soul, obviously demented, wrote his opinion in all caps and included in his statement approximately twenty exclamation marks.

Ben Franklin once remarked that "Three people can keep a secret if two are dead." Tom Clancy wrote in The Hunt for Red October that the ability to keep a conspiracy secret is inversely proportionate to the square of the number of people involved. The possibility that NASA faked the Moon landings and has successfully kept it quiet is about as likely as President Trump's minions keeping the Stormy Daniels story among themselves.

But, that is not what is fascinating. Conspiracy theories abound, especially on the internet. Some of them are preposterous. Others... Insane. One need ask not whether they are true, but what it is about human nature that causes people to want to believe.

Dr. Jonathan Haidt, in his book The Righteous Mind, suggested that people follow intuition first, and then look for evidence later. In the absence of evidence, economist Dr. Thomas Sowell suggests, human beings concoct rational-sounding arguments based on "common sense" but little else. Those people, Dr. Sowell observes, do not look for facts to support their theories.

One need ask - why would someone want to believe that the Moon landings were faked? What interest, what emotion, what personal need would that conclusion serve? What would compel someone to be so sure, in the absence of evidence, that they would troll FB and foist their improbable conclusion on total strangers? Why am I wasting valuable minutes of my own life writing this?

That's what writers do.

One question for the conspiracy theorists. Telemetered data was broadcast from the spacecraft every second of each mission, which was readily collected by anyone with the proper equipment. Any idea why the Soviets didn't call bullshit on the whole thing?

Oh, right. They were in on it, too.

A Life Serving Others

"In prison, I fell in love with my country..." John McCain.

Mourning the passing of John McCain, senator, naval aviator, patriot.

John McCain (right)

Required viewing in my "knife and fork class" as a new direct commission ensign in the Naval Reserve was a series of videos shot aboard the carrier USS Forrestal on 29July 1967. Multiple aircraft sat running, fully fueled and armed, awaiting launch for an attack against North Vietnamese forces. 

A flash... An errant missile from an F-4 Phantom. One explosion after another. A dozen pilots trapped in their cockpits as flames threaten to cook off their ordinance. A chief, wearing shipboard khakis and carrying a hand-held fire extinguisher, runs toward the planes as canopies come slowly open. Another explosion and the chief is gone.

Lieutenant Commander John McCain's A-4 Skyhawk is right in the middle of the holocaust. The cameras record him jumping from his cockpit onto a wing, then tumbling off down to the deck awash with spilled jet fuel.

He escaped the disaster that killed 134 sailors and pilots, only to be shot down and captured in October of the same year. He spent the next six years in a North Vietnamese prison camp. He was tortured, his injuries ignored. Yet, he demonstrated courage, leadership and an iron will. He would suffer the after effects of his injuries for the rest of his life.

His political career took him first to the House of Representatives, and later to the Senate. He developed a reputation as a maverick, with the unique ability to anger and frustrate both sides of the aisle. A bill meant to curtail lavish political contributions designed to influence politicians (some would say purchase their services) was co-sponsored with Russ Feingold, left wing Democrat senator from Wisconsin.

His run for president in 2008 was pure McCain. He chose as his running mate a little known woman governor from Alaska with a reputation for bucking well-connected political machines. She initially appeared to be a fresh, plain-spoken breath of fresh air. That she turned out to be a lessor figure on the national stage, probably responsible for voters souring on their ticket, did not cause McCain to toss her to the wolves.

On election night, the presidency lost, he took to the stage and... Marveled, celebrated, that he had lived to see the day the United States of America had chosen an African-American as her president. He was proud to be an American, he said.

As one might imagine, he was opposed to the unconventional interrogation methods used in the aftermath of 9/11. Reasonable people disagree on this subject, but Senator McCain never waivered.  Agree or disagree, it is always the right of a man who endured torture to hold his country to higher standards than the ones he had been shown.

He was not perfect. He could be difficult, petulant, petty. But, on the short list of great Americans he finds a comfortable place among our most distinguished servants, and warriors.

Fair winds and following seas, sir. The battles you fought on our behalf were worthy of you.

Inside Scoop

"I'm a cop at heart. It's in my blood." David A. Clarke, Jr.

It was an impromptu moment, one I miss most of all. Running errands - that is, picking up BDU pants to wear test - I stopped at a nationally-recognized coffee shop for a salad. It wasn't hard to pick out the unmarked supervisor's cars in the lot.

My friends sat at an outdoor table, relaxed. I went over, intent on saying hi and moving on. I had things to do.

"Sit down," one of them said. "Let me buy you a cup."

We have been work friends for years, he and I. Once, thirty or more years ago, he and I disarmed a man with a gun who had forced his way into an apartment and was beating a woman with a telephone. We still chuckle about that, how the guy had planned to be gone when the police showed up. Big mistake.

The three of us, sergeants all, talked about the things police supervisors discuss. Rumors, gossip... Families and friends. The good times. One excused himself for a meeting.

"I'll get the shield back to the station," he said as he left.

"We just came from talking a suicidal guy with a gun out of a hotel room," my friend said. "I wonder how many of these people know what we really do."

Not many, we decided. By design.

America - big cities and small towns, industrial states or ranches and farms. It works because there are men and women willing to do things in the service of their communities. Firefighters, nurses, dispatchers. City workers, transportation departments. People who answer calls for services large and small. Many citizens, perhaps most, don't know what the average officer does. And, that's good.

I stood talking yesterday to a former co-worker who took a job with a local fire department. Her last duty day they'd made almost twenty runs. She'd gotten four hours of sleep over her twenty-four hour shift. She wasn't complaining. She and her wife have a kiddo. The schedule works for them

Who really knows what first responders do?

Those three guys in uniform sitting at a table, drinking coffee...two of them fresh from convincing a guy that his life was still worth living. The one guy in the soft uniform thirty-nine years removed from his first day "on the job" who trains the next generation, the ones who will pick up the shield when we have had enough.

All day long.

The picture? That's New York police officer Jesse Ferriera Cavallo. All she did was leap thirty feet from an overpass to save a young boy...while off duty. That's all.

A Sticky Wicket

"Football is a game of mistakes. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins."

The kneeling, the charges and counter-charges... It must be football season again.

Lest we forget, the National Football League has attempted to curb the practice of players kneeling during the national anthem, or not appearing at all. Much silliness is made of First Amendment protections, workplace rules and the apparent ungrateful nature of a field full of millionaires refusing to show the most common respect for our country. Let's be fair...

It's about us...cops. According to these men we are racists. Hell, a US senator with aspirations to the White House said something similar just recently. The whole system is racist, and must be protested every Sunday on fields purchased primarily by taxpayers and protected by men and women in blue. In some of these cities officers have - very recently - given their lives in the service of the communities cheering these...gentlemen.

Her: "The Broncos are on."
Me: "I'm watching St. Kitts versus Guyana."

In a nutshell, I'd rather watch cricket than the National Football League. That's what I think of them and their opinions.