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What's G-d Got to Do With It?
I
hold in the highest regard and admiration those men and women who venture
forth into the unknown. Pioneers are always aware of the risks involved in
exploring new frontiers. When
I was about eight years old, I fell prey to a typical childhood disease
that caused me to be remanded to bed for the duration. I was given, among
other things, a book about space. There was a chapter on early flights of
fancy to the moon. A chapter on rockets. On the solar system. The galaxy.
Attempts to reach the fringes of space. And the future of space
exploration, a vision which was quite limited in 1953, outside of science
fiction. I
remember actually cheering when Commander Alan Shepard became the first
human being to reach space. And when Colonel John Glenn orbited the Earth.
And when Neil Armstrong became the first to plant a foot on an alien
world. I wanted to be there; I wanted to be them. To
the men and women who died and to those who still live to open the door to
a new frontier, I salute you.[1] Ya
just gotta love C-SPAN. Yup. Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network. Now
if it would only live up to its name and show the real affairs of
public officials, live, in real-time. Would be worth a few yuks.
Remembering, however, President Bill "Studly" Clinton, his
intern, and his cigar, maybe that's just a plain "yecchhh." But
I content myself with the amusement of watching Congress inaction and
Congress in action, as it were. Here is where C-SPAN really shines.
"Democracy," as H. L. Mencken said, "is the fine art of
running the zoo from within the monkey cage." C-SPAN doesn't tell us
what the monkeys are doing, it ushers us into the cage and lets us see for
ourselves. What
we see is pillage, plunder, and rapine—I know, that's redundant, but so
is Congress—on such a wholesale scale as to render insignificant the
exploits of the Vikings, the Huns, and the Mongels. Tamerlane's mountain
of skulls was a foothill compared to the heights reached by Congress when
it stacks up the sucked-dry husks of the American taxpayer. Annually. C-SPAN's
morning program, Washington Journal, is my favorite, not only because of
its parade of monkeys of both the elective and appointive types, but
because it opens up the telephone lines to the hoi polloi. It is a rare
and wondrous thing to listen to what comes from the brain-disengaged
mouths of my fellow citizens. On
Saturday, February 1, as we watched the horrible spectacle of the space
shuttle Columbia breaking up on re-entry, C-SPAN opened up its lines to
callers. Most of them were horrified, shocked, thoughtful, crying, and
decent. Some of the callers, however, served to re-justify my considerable
faith in the ability of human beings to be inhumane, insensitive, and just
plain stoopid. Within one five-minute period, I heard two callers with
smug self-congratulation in their voices note that G—d's judgment had
been called down for various and sundry reasons. So much for the feelings
of the families of the astronauts. (Note:
I spell G—d as I do because I'm not sure as to the actual spelling of
the deity in question: God or Gawd. Please fill in the blank with the
vowel sound of your choice.) There
was no mention as to whether this was the Christian G—d, the Jewish
G—d, the G—d of Islam, or one of the many G—ds of the ancients.
Personally, I believe it was G—d the Baptist. I
recall from my youth those high school classmates of the Baptist
perversion who were forbidden to go to school dances, attend movies, eat
ice cream, wear lipstick, or scratch where it itches. Surely, such a
fun-killer G—d would be the one most likely to zap a bunch of
astronauts, merely on the basis that they were having so much fun!
Yeah, Tiger Woods gets to play golf and get paid millions. That's cool.
But these people, these astronauts . . . . They got paid for going
into space! Would that it were me. But, then I'd be on some G—d's hit
list. Perhaps
if we look more closely at the comments of the callers we may find insight
into the nature and characteristics of this G—d, the one who killed
seven in "judgment." Case
1:
It was G—d's judgment on us for going into space. So,
G—d killed seven spacefarers to warn us off. To tell us, in effect,
"No Trespassing." What conclusions can we draw from this? G—d
is inattentive.
The space program was initiated in earnest in 1960 and G—d only now gets
around to telling us "Keep Out! This Means You! Yankee Go Home!"
Of course, there were the two earlier accidents where we lost ten
astronauts. Maybe those were judgments, too. But G—d keeps getting his
licks in later and later in the mission: first in training, then in
liftoff, now on re-entry. Maybe G—d's next judgment will wait until the
astronauts have returned to their homes and G—d not only knocks off the
spacefarers, but their families and maybe the neighbors. Now there would
be a message. Maybe
G—d 's been busy. G—d 's got an entire universe—perhaps several of
them—to run, and G—d 's a hands-on kind of deity. Likes to work up
close and personal, according to the fuliginous[2]
fulminations of fundamentalists. Maybe G—d doesn't want to delegate such
delicate matters to staff, so it takes time before G—d gets around to
handling the in-basket. Memo--------------- To:
The Big Guy From:
Gabe After
trumpet practice the other decade I visited the Earthers. They're still at
it, trying to sneak into H——v—n through the back door. I really
think you have to send them a message. Again. That Tower of Babel thing
didn't do it. G—d
is inefficient.
G—d 's wasted a lot of time and energy trying to send us a message, or,
as the judgmentalists would have it, punishing those who go out into
space. If so, G—d 's missed a bunch of them. G—d should just ignite
one thermonookyuler—sorry, I've been listening to reruns of the State of
the Union—one thermonuclear device-sized G—d-zap above the atmosphere
and the resulting electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) would fry our electronics
back to the Bronze Age. No more computers. No more of anything that runs
on computers, which is most of everything these days. Ergo, no more space
missions. Easier
yet, G—d should put a glass bubble around the world, about 50 or so
miles up. Keep everything in.
The ultimate terrarium. May
5, 1961 Cmdr.
Shepard: "Houston, I have a problem." Houston:
"Go ahead, Commander." Cmdr.
Shepard: "I've bumped into something." Houston:
"Repeat." Cmdr.
Shepard: "I've bumped into something. It's invisible. I can't go any
higher." Houston:
"Commander, abort your mission. It sounds like you're already high
enough." February
20, 1962 Col.
Glenn: "Houston, I have a problem." Houston:
"Go ahead, Colonel." Col.
Glenn: "I've bumped into something." Houston:
"Repeat." Col.
Glenn: "I keep going around the world, but I can't get any higher.
It's like I'm sliding on ice." Houston:
"OK, Colonel. Abort your mission. Next time, use a little more ice
and a little less scotch in your drinks at the going-away party." Before
you know it, NASA would be suing G—d over the Glass Ceiling. G—d
is bigoted.
That's right, prejudiced. G—d keeps us out of space, but G—d lets all
those other aliens into space. ET. The aliens from Close Encounters. The
ones the Skid Row winos talk to. The ones who took Auntie Em up in a
saucer and did, well . . . those things. (We don't talk about it at the
dinner table.) Or
the real ones that landed in Roswell, NM.[3]
And the
aliens being held by FedGov and living in luxury in Hangar 18, Area 51
where they have high tea, Cuban cigars, the best Scotch, and Playboy
bunnies, all at taxpayer expense. Why them and not us? Do they have the
franchise on being UFOs? The sole purpose of the space program is to get
to other planets where we can be UFOs. And we're not allowed. We
should sue God for discrimination. Memo------------------------------------- To:
Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe - Attorneys-at-Law From:
NASA How
are you coming on that reparations suit against G—d? Since your cut is
going to be 30% of an infinite amount of simoleons, I'd think you'd be
moving a little faster on this. And forget working through the lower
courts. Go to the top. Not the Supreme Court. Go right to Captain Kirk. Case
2:
The second call of similar ilk from a sufferer of cranial-rectal insertion
indicated that the zapping of seven astronauts was a judgment against the
warmongers. Yup. G—d killed a shuttle and seven human beings because
BushTwo wants to go to war. What can we glean from this? Again,
God is inefficient. If he'd done it right, it might have gone
something like this: Columbia:
"Houston, we've got a problem" Houston:
"Columbia, your telemetry shows you're in the crapper (scientific
term for "big trouble"). But you've got enough time to ride her
down and initiate ejection plan 17." Columbia:
"Will do." Columbia:
"Houston, we have reached safe atmospheric levels and are bailing out
of this tub." Houston:
"Roger that, Columbia. Set auto-pilot for Atlantic Ocean." Houston:
"Do you see where the Columbia is headed? It looks like it's on track
for Washington, DC. With no crew aboard, we can't control it. Look! It’s
going in!" CNR
talking head: "We take you live to Blitz Wolfer on the grounds of the
former White House, now known as the Washington Crater, where the
President was reportedly scarfing down a bag of pretzels and practicing
the pronunciation of 'nookyuler' when the out-of-control shuttle
struck." I'm
only kidding. All it would take would be just the bag of pretzels
and someone using a cell phone near Cheney's pacemaker, and voila! No more
warmongers. And no dead astronauts. G—d
has bad aim.
G—d aims at Washington, DC [4]
and hits a space
shuttle 3,000 miles to the west. Time to book G—d in at the range for a
little target practice. Maybe that's what happened to the fifth planet,
the one that's now a mass of rocks and rubble between Mars and Jupiter.
G—d looked down, saw that a great mistake had been made, aim a giant zap
at the Earth, and missed. G—d
is ambiguous.
G—d leaves these obscure little messages around and expects us to get
them without any hints. G—d
spaketh: "I want to stop the Mike
the Angel speaks: "Remember that Tower of Babel thing, Chief? They
already missed the point." G—d
spaketh again: "Yeah, but that was about sneaking into
H——v—n." Mike:
"Oh, yeah." G—d
spaketh yet again: "Maybe I should try the burning Bush thing again.
Call up Chuck Heston and see if he's up to it." Since
the space program began, we've lost 17 astronauts, counting the No,
it wasn't G—d at all. And it wasn't Zeus, or Odin, or even Loki, the
trickster deity. Maybe it was just an accident. What's G—d got to do
with it? [1]
Of all the things that government has done with my money, I find this the
least objectionable. [2]
I could have said "tenebrous" but the alliteration was too good
to pass up. [4]
District of Confusion [5]
Actually, the Green Party is saying this, but who listens to
Greens? [6]
Pronounced "vee-hickles" in GA.. |
