On a day we were meant to look forward to Curiosity landing on Mars, a terrorist gunned down six Sikh worshippers and a responding police officer at a Milwaukee gurudwara. My first reaction was, “Go buy a gun and a permit and get yourself to the range.” This was immediately followed by, “Don’t be stupid.”
I think about it. And think about it. And think about it. It all comes down to helplessness. Racist halfwit Wade Page thought the answer was killing Sikhs; heaven only knows what the question was. I want to think the answer is strapping a shotgun to my back not bothering to conceal anything so Stay The Hell Away. Rinku Sen wonders, “Must I arm my mother and send her to the shooting range if she wants to wear a sari in public?”
And what? What is this going to accomplish? Us turning into future George Zimmermans, shooting “preemptively” at each and every perceived threat? Great. That’s how Islamophobia got out of hand in the first place. That’s how yesterday happened.
I expected more from us by now.
And that includes more funding for NASA. This is a picture of the Curiosity Rover landing on Mars as captured by the NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Is that an orthogonal, vertical joint set to the right?
Keep looking. It’s all we can do.
What is changing: We used to say, “We can put a man on the moon, why can’t we…” And now we’ll say, “We put a rover on Mars with pinpoint precision, why can’t we…”
What is not changing: The long list of problems that follow the statements above.
Peace,
Tim
We must somehow reprogram ourselves to welcome the different, the unfamiliar, instead of bristling at it and going into defensive crouches. Yes, that means that many of us will have to change our very natures — but that is evolution at work, and it must continue if we are to survive as a species.