Race

Back in the day, this was the hottest topic of discussion: who can get to the Moon first? The Americans were engaged in a time-restricted race with the Soviets. On September 13, 1939, the Soviet Union’s Luna 2 unmanned rocket made a hard landing on the surface of the moon-i.e., crashed into the moon. The Americans mirrored this in 1962 with their Ranger 4 rocket but ultimately took the cake on July 20, 1969, with the Apollo 11 mission successfully getting two astronauts to the surface of the Earth’s only natural satellite. This “Golden Age” of space exploration eventually died down and although there were plenty of missions after that, none had the social resonance of the first ones. America had won, the Soviets were defeated and everybody could go to sleep all relaxed knowing that the world was in order. Space exploration continued after that with a few highlights sprinkled across the decades but nothing could reach the hype of those early years. Our dreams of living in a super…

It's the year 2021. Why are people still racist? We have occasion, over and over, to keep wondering. The Washington Post pondered the question during the Trump administration, when the 2017 Charlottesville uprising showed us that America's ugly KKK roots are still alive and well. Of course, the WaPo arrive at no answer, only a bald examination of the puzzle. Racism, and all forms of bigotry, make no sense, and yet they seem to be hard-wired into our brains. In fact, recent years show that we divide ourselves along an increasing spectrum of arbitrary differences. Ageism has reared its head with the perpetual generation war. We just got through talking about how politically divided the "United" States is. We sit around in our idle time and make up more ways to divide us: rich vs. poor, dog people vs. cat people, whether or not we put pineapple on pizza. People: Sort us into two groups, and we will find a reason to hate each other. Since we will find endless reasons to hate each other,…

The new space race

The Race Illusion : There Is Actually No Such Thing As Race