A Giant Leaps

“Christopher Columbus, Charles Lindbergh, and Neil Armstrong. Ha, ha, ha. Neil Armstrong!”*

Neil Armstrong has died. I received that information not with shock or sorrow, but disbelief. He became, on July 20^th, 1969, the first human being to set foot on another planet. Henceforth and forever more he will be so.

Born in 1930 in Ohio, educated at Purdue University, he became a Navy combat pilot. Enemy fire crippled his plane, and he clipped a pole with his wing at an altitude of twenty feet. He was able to fly to safety and eject successfully. He later flew a number of test aircraft, including the X-15, which was capable of speeds in excess of four thousand miles per hour. Selected as a NASA astronaut, he completed the first docking of independent spacecraft on Gemini 8. That mission terminated early due to a short-circuiting thruster that caused his vehicle to tumble dizzily. Commanding Apollo 11, he set the Lunar Module on the Moon’s surface with a negligible amount of fuel left, barely enough to give him and co-pilot Buzz Aldrin a safety margin in the event of an aborted landing attempt.

Unwanted

Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see. ~Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood (introduction), 1982.

"Unwanted subject."

Dispatch sent my friend to the call, and I volunteered to help. A woman complained to the calltaker that two men were refusing to leave her apartment. She requested help in sending them on their way.

More times than not the act of calling the police motivates the unwanted to vanish before we arrive. Often, avoiding some sort of complication - the person has a warrant for their arrest and would prefer not going to jail - becomes a singularly advantageous outcome. Other times, the dope in their pocket calls out to make haste. Finally, some people are downright antisocial.

We arrived, knocked on the door, and a young woman answered. The men were gone, she said. Entering with permission, we confirmed that she was alone with her toddler.

The apartment was devoid of furniture, save a bed, dresser and pack-n-play for the child. A TV sat on the living room floor. Boxes of cereal were arrayed neatly atop the refrigerator, kitchen utensils arranged logically on a clean counter. The young lady didn't have much, but what she did have gleamed. We asked her why she'd called.

Another Hurdle

"She has decided she will be whatever anyone wants her to be – vixen, virgin, victim." Jere Longman, New York Times, August 4, 2012.


Lolo Jones made the US Olympic team running hurdles. She finished fourth, one tenth of a second out of the bronze and a quarter second slower than the Olympic record set by the gold medal winner. A commentator described her as an athlete who "runs on emotion – anything is possible when she's on the track." Through hard work, preparation and sacrifice, she ran one hundred meters barely three seconds slower than Usain Bolt's world record in the men's one hundred. Not one hundred hurdles…just one hundred meters of clear track.

In his hit piece, Longman describes her as more marketing than performance. Come on, really? Seriously?

Hack.

A Man, A Gun and A Shattered Peace

On End Apathy's MySpace page, band members call their music, “a sad commentary on our sick society and the problems that prevent true progress.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/06/sikh-temple-shooter-soundtrack-hate/#ixzz22nBv3ZRs


One of the many things preventing "true progress" is respect for each other. I could go through the usual litany but what is the point? Someone like Wade Michael Page, hate musician and murderer of six in Wisconsin, is going to be unmoved by any appeal to better angels. Frankly, individuals of his ilk have none.

What about the rest of us?

No Michael Phelps

Was anyone else charmed by the American Judo athlete? After her improbable bronze medal, the daytime NBC guy interviewed the young lady with the memorable name of Marti Malloy (Riley's sister-in-law, perhaps?*). Platitudes galore? The judo equivelent of "They have a fahn football club"?

No. She was delightful. A "professional eater" she says about herself on Twitter. Told that another medal winner had dropped his medal in the shower and broken it, she exclaimed "In the shower?!" Asked if she would take hers into the shower - "NO!" which also looked a whole lot like "Hell, no!"

Her Olympics are over and she has time to kill. "What events will you go see?" she was asked. She rattled off a couple of obscure sports, including table tennis. Why? Her friends and roomates are competitors. She was off to root for them.

Michael Phelps seems a fine man. My nephew Bryce, an exceptional swimmer in his own right, is friends with gold medalist Missy Franklin, and says she's a genuinely nice young lady. I'm glad.

But somebody ought to drag Marti Malloy in front of a camera in prime time and introduce America to her.


*If you don't know who that is.... Why haven't you read Out of Ideas?

Feel the Rhythm

"I'm feeling very Olympic today!"*


Men's volleyball is on, and the US just got a point because Serbia's "backup opposite was clearly over the three meter line."


Of course. How could he be so clumsy?


I love the Olympics. I've been –with my Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim to the Munich Games, 1972 (yeah, those Olympics), and with our girls to Salt Lake City in 2002. I get choked up watching the opening ceremonies, amazed at the costumes (I don't really care who made them) and...where is Andorra? I soak in the human-interest stories. I root for Americans, but enjoy every athlete's efforts, be they gold medal or merely "making their only appearance in the Games." I listen to the great martial music year round and wait impatiently for the next Olympiad, when "Summon the Heroes" greets me morning, noon and night. The Greer Family lexicon is animated with Cool Runnings quotes like the above – can you imagine any other occasion when "Tallulah!" is an appropriate exclamation? The politics are dull and pointless, but whenever human beings gather there are always boorish souls among them who can't resist. The commercials ("Only Human," for example) have been Super Bowl good.


I amaze myself, too, with expert commentary about sports I watch every two years. "Well played," I suggest admiringly, watching curling during the winter games ("It's kind of a winter sport, you know.). Curling, the only sport playable with a cold Molson's Canadian in one hand, a lit Export A dangling jauntily. Curling, about which I know next to nothing (there is ice, and rocks with handles. Brooms). In the Summers, I tut-tut when the judges deduct a tenth for some imperceptible hop after a high-wire routine (or is it high bar?) and oh-my-God did you see Abby Wambach get sucker punched? And stay the hell away from me when water polo is on...is it true the referee goes through three whistles in a match?


Like any other Olympic geek, gear has an allure all its own. The archery apparatus seem a fascinating combination of William Tell and the mortar guy's gun sight in Stripes. Timing devices that can measure a hundredth of a second difference in a pool – are you kidding me? The boat races are very cool – how much sailing coverage this year?


The dogs are sleeping, I'm writing and the Olympics are on. This time, the Beach Volleyball women are wearing what looks like Under Armor full body suits, with their itsy-bitsy bikini tops on the outside. A new option – something about allowing more of the world's women to participate. The Dutch woman just did the "jump float serve." The Brazilian woman's set was perfect, her partner dropping it right down the middle.


Nicely played.

*Sanka Coffie (Doug E. Doug), Cool Runnings, 1993

A Cotton Pickin’, Finger Lickin Chicken Plucker

"I want to be a cotton pickin', finger lickin' chicken plucker,
The same as my old man."*


The only time I've ever had a Chick-fil-A sandwich was at the Democratic National Convention at the Pepsi Center in 2008, where we were assigned interior security. The organizers had arranged to feed us once per shift – and (ironically) the first day provided a cooler full of chicken. They were fine.


I have no dog in the current "fight" with Chick-fil-A, its president or his opinions. I strongly support gay marriage, however, so maybe I'm at odds with the "Eat More Chikin" folks. I wasn't really paying attention to what is an entirely silly, contrived dispute. That is, right up to the point the Mayor of Boston got involved.


"If they need licenses in the city, it will be very difficult — unless they open up their policies," Menino told the Boston Herald, referring to Chick-fil-A. "Open up their policies" apparently means…. What? Absent any evidence that the company actually engages in discrimination, presumably the company president cannot voice opinions with which the City of Boston officially disagrees. If he does, there is a price to pay.


Shall we fiddle with the facts?