The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Maybe you’ve gotten weary of the news stories about the government shutdown over building a Wall between our frightened citizens and the zombie apocalypse moving north out of the other Americas. Too much, too often, too damn hard to take. If so, the news that the Chinese had landed a spaceship on the back side of the moon must’ve been either heartening or a relief or possibly just the precursor to a lunar Wall to keep the Chinese on their side of the moon. And if that wasn’t interesting enough for the world weary, NASA’s New Horizon space probe photographed Ultima Thule, a ten mile long chunk of ancient something or other, while rocketing by at 35,000 mph, a feat of engineering I’m not even going to try to describe. This is a speck of matter a mere one billion miles beyond Pluto. Wrap yer mind around THAT instead of gnashing your teeth over Trump’s latest tweet.

There will be those, of course, who ask why we would spend our hard earned tax dollars on flinging a satellite out into the Kuiper belt. Can’t mine many minerals on Ultima Thule. Probably couldn’t sell condominiums out there or even build a Trump Tower. Doubt if you could grow tomatoes in that soil. I mean, what earthly good is this adventure? Oh sure, it gives a few engineers some employment, but what about taking care of poverty here on terra firma? We could’ve built a Wall between us and Mexico, plus one between us and those Canadians with the money NASA spent to shoot a sputnik past Pluto.

I get it. Folks probably said the same thing to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand when they bankrolled Columbus. The English, the French and the Portuguese had all turned Christopher down before Spain threw the dice. Why send expensive ships out to the edge of a world where they’d slide right off the face of the earth? You kidding me? We got problems right here in River City, pal. Good money right down the vortex.

But … before you start another Tea Party Rebellion, let me say it has been a welcome diversion from our earthbound impasses to watch our government and the Chinese too engaged in a grand adventure beyond the limits of my own meager imagination. Heartening, is what it is, to cheer the success of a team of dedicated scientists and engineers. Far greater, in my mind, than cheering for a football team or an American Idol finalist. This is what government is capable of, you ask me, daring to boldly go where no one has gone before. Frankly, given the state of our politics these dark days, I can use all the inspiration I can get.

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