It was 41 years ago today...

...that man first walked on the moon.
Thanks to the timely reminder on Colleen Doran's blog, this did not elude me.
I recall sitting in awe in front of my Grandma's B & W TV console, my family around me. My mother, grandmother, brothers and sisters and I sat in awe.
My grandma quietly remarked that this was something Golden (my grandfather who had passed a few weeks earlier) always wanted to see.
Like Kennedy's death, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hands Across America and the Fall of the Towers, an event that touched us all.
There will always be the cynics and conspiracy theorists contending it didn't happen.
Twaddle.
They just refuse to believe in human possibility.



I'm also reminded of one of my favorite comics of last year, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?
The events are chronicled therein as well. (I'll amend this post with apropos scans tomorrow pages now ready to post!).

As we fight to treat each other decently in an increasingly indecent world, let us pause and recognize our capacities.
"Reach for the Moon" is no longer a euphemism.
Perhaps we can make the phrase "human decency" a reality as well.

Thoughts on the oil disaster

I have made the mistake of looking at the photos of the poor creatures devastated by this atrocity.
Every time we are faced with catastrophe, whether it be man-made like 9/11 or the BP disaster, or a byproduct of nature, like the Haitian Earthquake or Hurricane Katrina, we are given the opportunity to decide who we are as a people, a culture and a spiritual force.
I suggest we put aside our petty venalities (as difficult for me as for anyone) and agree to work together to solve the problem in whatever ways we can.
I would also greatly appreciate it if people would stop calling this a "spill." A roll of paper towels will not do the job here.