NASA, of all people, gets back into the space biz

 

Artemis II crew.

     Too bad some of the fame attached to remarks made on humanity's first landing on the moon, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed," on July 20, 1969, and the even more renowned, "One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind" was never extended to the enthusiastic, if ungrammatical, burst at the last moon landing, Apollo 17, on Dec. 11, 1972.
     "We is here!" cried rookie astronaut Harrison (Jack) Schmitt. "Man, is we here."
     Now we are returning to the neighborhood for the first time in nearly 54 years. All exploration is grounded in the time when it occurs, and just as the Apollo program was an artifact of the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, so Artemis II, expected to swing closest to the moon on Monday, can be seen through a lens of 2026 and a nation in turmoil.
     A time when actual reality can be lost in the fun house of social media — for instance, we're skimming past, not landing on, the moon. Artemis II will fly about 5,000 miles above the lunar surface; to put that in context, the International Space Station orbits about 250 miles above the earth.
     Is the public enthralled by this latest foray into space? Hard to say. Boredom with the assumed wonder of space exploration is a theme almost as old as space exploration itself.
     If you remember Ron Howard's excellent movie "Apollo 13," interest in what would have been the third moon landing was tepid until an explosion damaged the ship and forced a dramatic skin-of-their-teeth return. Before the crisis, while Jim Lovell does a live broadcast from space, the guys at Mission Control in Houston sneak glances at the Astros game, and none of the networks chose to carry Lovell's show.
     When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Chicagoans were almost as amazed by the fact they could watch it live on television.
     ”We were all there, bound together by the miracle of communication that intertwined all the other miracles of technology that marketed man’s first step on a celestial body,” the Chicago Daily News said in an editorial.
     The Chicago Tribune, with characteristic modesty, editorialized that their coverage of the event was an achievement on par with the landing itself.
     To me, half the wonder is not the journey but who's doing it. After years of headlines about private space ventures, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX, I reacted to the Artemis II mission with a surprised, "Does NASA still do that kind of thing?" 
     To add context, Artemis II took off Wednesday night. On Friday, the Trump administration proposed chopping the NASA budget by 23%.
     I had two questions. Apollo used a three-man crew. So why does Artemis need four astronauts?
     The short answer is the Orion spacecraft is designed to be flown by four astronauts — it has 50% more living space than the Apollo command module — but reading the NASA release announcing the crew, you can't help but suspect there's some Biden-era diversity going on as well:

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Recessional

 

Winged bull from the throne room of Sargon II (Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures)

     Saturday dawned quiet.  The big pots were scrubbed and back on a high shelf.  The extra tables, back down in the basement, along with the dozen folding chairs. The living room furniture was returned to its proper place. The dishwasher, going non-stop for a while, stilled. The rain continued, off and on, and a chill gray set in, as if spring were having second thoughts.

     Friday the older boy and his growing family had departed for Michigan. The younger and his growing bride, back to their dozen daily concerns in Hyde Park. I missed them more than I savored the silence, and thought, for some reason, of a dusty line from Rudyard Kipling.

    "The tumult and the shouting dies, the captains and the kings depart." 

     From "Recessional," written after Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. (A recessional is the hymn chanted in church after a service as the choir and clergy depart). I don't remember ever reading "Recessional," but found the poem online easy enough. It's out of copyright, and brief, so I can share the whole thing. I think it merits a read:

                              God of our fathers, known of old,

                                 Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

                              Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

                                Dominion over palm and pine—

                              Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

                              Lest we forget—lest we forget!

                             The tumult and the shouting dies;

                               The Captains and the Kings depart:

                             Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

                               An humble and a contrite heart.

                             Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

                             Lest we forget—lest we forget!

                             Far-called, our navies melt away;

                              On dune and headland sinks the fire:

                             Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

                               Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

                             Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,

                             Lest we forget—lest we forget!

                             If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

                              Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,

                             Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

                              Or lesser breeds without the Law—

                             Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

                             Lest we forget—lest we forget!

                             For heathen heart that puts her trust

                               In reeking tube and iron shard,

                             All valiant dust that builds on dust,

                              And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,

                             For frantic boast and foolish word—

                             Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

         That seems an apt sentiment for Easter Sunday. Britain was at the height of its power and Kipling, the bard of colonialism and the White Man's Burden, tacked against type, invoking humility and God.

         Not entirely, of course. There's a lot to unpack in the poem. Did you notice "an humble." Correct once upon a time in England, where the "h" was unpronounced. 

         The expression "lesser breeds" pokes a 2026 reader in the eye.  But notice what makes someone a lesser breed: being "without the law." A condition that we are flirting with. Or swan diving into. Or already drowning in. Give "lesser breeds" credit — at least it's spoken plainly. We embrace the attitude while avoiding the candor. Which may be even worse.

         To his further credit, the "heathen heart" putting its faith in smoking guns and shattering shells is clearly Kipling's countrymen. And ours.

         "Drunk with sight of power." Ain't that the truth? Worth remembering, as former attorney general Pam Bondi slinks off into whatever eternal ignominy awaits those who make their devil's bargain, leap willingly into the sucking maw, serve their shameful span, then are shitted out Trump's enormous backside. As much as I'd like to let out a faint "yippee" at her being cashiered, it strangles in my throat, realizing why she was canned: for not being skilled enough at covering up Trump's crimes, nor successful enough when twisting the Justice Department to persecute his enemies. Expect her replacement to try harder.

         In critiquing the poem, I overlooked the most important part. Notice it? "Lest we forget." It must be important, he says it eight times. Lest we forget ... what? That power, like life, is fleeting, and when it ebbs all we have left is the memory of how we conducted ourselves — in honor, honesty, humanity. Or with greed, violence, shame. 

         It is worth realizing that Great Britain ain't so great anymore, yet still exists. If the United States is in decline — and the warning bells are flashing, the needles red-zoning, the sirens whirring — then we were not defeated by an outside foe, but we destroyed ourselves, by turning our backs on our supposed values and groveling before a golden calf that would embarrass the folks in Nineveh and Tyre, great cities in Biblical times. Not such a big deal anymore. It happened to them, then. It's happening to us now. 

Work in progress: Jack Clark on giving books titles

     Regular contributor Jack Clark has been on a roll. Readers like him, I like him. To be honest, I might not even have thought that today's contribution was "a bit of a self-promotion" unless he himself worried aloud about it. Maybe so. But as I tell young writers, — or would, if any of them ever asked, which they don't — if a writer doesn't care about his own stuff, then nobody will. If it's a plug, then Jack has earned it.  I don't pay him for his contributions to EGD. But maybe you can take the plunge and order his book. 

     When self-driving trucks take over the highways, the long-distance furniture mover will probably be the last to climb aboard.
     I wrote that a couple of years back as the introduction to a proposal for my book Honest Labor. The subtitle back then was, Adventures in the Moving Trade. The proposal led nowhere. I recently gave up and published the book myself with a new subtitle, Writing & Moving Furniture.
     I worked on the book for more than a decade. Not continually but here and there between other writing projects. It’s had several titles along the way. Big Trucks and Taxicabs may have been the first. But then I decided to cut the taxi. I’d already covered that subject in a couple of novels. We Haul Anything Cartage Company, I got that one from The Man with the Golden Arm, Nelson Algren’s novel. This is what he dubbed Hebard Storage, the moving company that hauled the unclaimed bodies from the county morgue to potter’s field. I spent most of my 15-year moving career at Hebard. One of my first published stories was about the same trip that Algren had written about.  

     A Writer Behind the Wheel. That might have been the worst title of all. 48 States. I still kind of like that one, and I have been through all of them. Over the Road. That one’s not too bad.
     My favorite title was Longhaul and I probably would have published the book under that name but Finn Murphy beat me into print with his book The Long Haul, which, like mine, is the memoir of a long-haul furniture mover.
      I heard about the book before it came out and then tracked down Murphy via email to ask how he’d managed to find a publisher. He was nice enough to tell me the truth. A brother and a sister were both well-established writers. He’d used their agent.
     One of my friends suggested that Murphy might have stolen not only my title but my idea. Well, I’d queried widely looking for an agent so it’s possible he’d heard about my book. But coming from a literary family, I think writing about the kind of work you're doing is a pretty obvious thought. You can’t steal ideas anyway. They’re like air and also, like titles, non-copyrightable.
      Now you might think one book from a furniture mover is more than enough. But the two books are nothing alike. They are completely different takes on the same long-distance world.
     I was first inspired to write mine by a John McPhee article in The New Yorker. He went along on a cross-country trip with a hazardous material (HazMat) tank truck driver. It’s a good story but that’s due to McPhee’s skill as a writer. I can’t think of a more uninteresting form of trucking. The only excitement might come if something bad happened along the way. But if the truck explodes, who would be left to write the story?
     Other than that, it’s a trip from one tank to another, from a hose to a nozzle.
      I guess the real trucking is all those miles between tanks. To a furniture mover, those same miles are when you’re relaxing and letting your body heal. The real work happens when the engine is off and the truck is sitting still. We sometimes called the driving part of the job windshield time. You could sing along to the radio and glance at the passing scenery, but you could never take your eye off the road. And yes, Windshield Time, I used that as a title for a while too.
     Sometimes I took a notebook along on my trips. But when I finally sat down to write, the only one I found had a single entry. “World’s largest prairie dog,” it said, alongside an exit number. I think it was off of Interstate 70 in Kansas. One way or the other, I never stopped to see the dog.
     Without notes, I had doubts that I could write the book. Maybe that’s why it’s one of my favorites.
      What I did find was an entire box full of moving paperwork, old log books and trip settlements. These came with bills of ladings attached, which showed pick-up and delivery addresses, the weight of the shipment and other details. Once I put those in order, much of my memory came back.
     What brought all this to mind was a New York Times article about self-driving trucks plying the highways in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, among other places. They’re having a problem with phantom braking. Well, I did a bit of that myself, in days of old. In a big truck, if you think you see something, you don’t wait to make sure. You have to slow down immediately, in case it’s not just another highway hallucination. It takes a very long time to stop those heavy vehicles.
     Anyway, this is an enticement for you to pick up a copy of my book and enter a world that could soon disappear.
     You might think, why would I want to read about moving furniture? Well, you’ve read this far. What’s another 70,000 words?

Do Chinese people pick up after their dogs?

Picture of Moyuli, a Chinese greyhound, from Ten Prized Dogs Album.

     This column is a rarity — one that I wrote for the paper, then decided it failed to stand up to my own standards. I was in a rush, to make a train downtown, and so did what I could with a small incident that happened the night before. I turned it in — can't blow a deadline — but as I did told my boss I worried it was "strange" and if he preferred, I'd take a swing at something else when I got back home. It wasn't the oddness that bothered him, but that it was a theme I've already taken a few bites out of recently. I leapt to write something else.

     But that doesn't make it unpostable, given the ... umm ... more generous standards of EGD. I hope you enjoy it.

     Pop quiz. Find the glaring error in the following paragraph:
     Wednesday afternoon, while strolling with my dog Kitty, I saw a Chinese lady walking her dog toward me along Center Avenue. The woman, who I've never met, was wearing a black baseball cap and black sweatshirt, and walking a black greyhound. I hoped she might stay on my side of the street, so we could exchange pleasantries while our dogs sniffed each other. I like doing that. But as we approached each other, she crossed the street, to avoid us.
     Can you spot the problem? I can't tell if it's glaring or not, but it did immediately occur to me, the moment after the above thought flashed across my mind. Any idea?
     Answer: if we've never met, how could I tell the woman was Chinese? Particularly with her large sunglasses. The fact is, I couldn't. I was just guessing, based on whim and appearances. She could have been Japanese or Korean or Vietnamese or really any other nationality.
     I certainly couldn't guess her immigration status from a distance. Which is what makes the ICE strategy of snatching people off the street who strike them as an immigrants, then figuring out later, over hours or days or weeks, whether they are citizens, particularly random, ineffective and cruel.
     The other thing I noticed is that she wasn't carrying a bag of poop. Which either meant that her dog hadn't answered nature's call yet, or, awful to contemplate, that she just didn't pick up after her dog. Which, as a responsible dog owner, is just reprehensible.
     As she passed, Kitty cast the woman's tiny-headed hellhound a look of entreaty. She's such a nice dog, she just wants to make friends. Sometimes, after similar snubs, I lean down, give her a comforting pat, and declare, loudly, "They're not friendly!"
     As the woman of unknown nationality and her dog passed, I had this flight of fancy.
     What if, in seeing her down the block, and pegging her birthplace from 50 yards away, I had also seen her dog assume the position, and then the two depart, without her bagging the result, as all responsible dog walkers must do?
     And furthermore, I then hurried to my iMac, flopped my fingers on the keyboard, and unleashed this opinion in the newspaper, based on the real world experience I had just experienced:
     Chinese people don't clean up after their dogs.
     I'd be lambasted, right? Keelhauled. Maybe not fired, but roundly ridiculed and rightly so. Readers, I hope, would leap to point out that one example is proof of nothing. That even if this one particular woman — who may or may not be Chinese — didn't pick up after her dog, there are 1.4 billion other Chinese people in China and maybe 50 million more living around the world, one of the largest diasporas. One instance, or a dozen, does not prove anything. She doesn't represent them all. You'd demand that I produce studies, surveys, news reports, some kind of factual basis for this outlandish claim.
     So why ... why why why why — do Republicans get away with slurring immigrants as violent criminals? It's a far more serious charge than failure to clean up after a dog. Yet the evidence presented is always, always, always, identical: a single case. Maybe two, which, taken together, prove nothing.
     The difference is, they always use highly emotional crimes. You're never going to hear someone rant on Fox News about a Venezuelan accountant embezzling from his client. What we get is some heartbreaking murder of a young white woman. "LOOK INTO THE FACE OF THIS YOUNG WOMAN, MURDERED BY AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT. ALL IMMIGRANTS MUST BE DEPORTED!"
     It ends all argument — ends all thought, really. For them. For us, if we try to muster a few general facts — immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes — they either run away or shake the case harder in our faces. . No one ever stopped, in mid-rant, "SAY HER NAME, YOU ... what? Immigrants are two to three times more law abiding than American-born citizens. Oh. Silly me. Sorry. Never mind."
     Speaking of facts. I must point out, people in China do pick up after their dogs. While scofflaws are a widespread problem there, not doing your duty, dog poo wise, is increasingly considered a lapse, which can result in lowering your all-important social credit score.
     Immigration has slid from our minds, momentarily, because of the Iran war and a dozen other distractions. But billions of tax dollars are being pumped into ICE, warehouses are being converted into prisons, though not without local opposition — thank you decent people of America. But do not be deceived. ICE will change strategy and be back. Maybe not in Chicago. But somewhere, soon.

Birthright citizenship opposition puts the lie to 'illegal'

Haters pretend they have no problem with legal immigrants, when of course they do.

     Thursday morning, when I was having coffee in the kitchen and talking with my sons and daughters-in-law, with regular pauses to make sputtering noises at the baby, I was really, really glad I took the day off. Good for me, bad for you: no column in the Sun-Times today. Though I do have thoughts on one of the nine big stories of the week.   

     Bullies are cowards. They rarely are willing to face consequences for holding and expressing their stunted souls. They rarely come out, anymore, and say, "I need to hurt people to feel good about myself,: or "I have to hate ..." and then add whatever group has stuck in their craw.
     So they speak in code.
     For example, D.E.I., the effort to break the lock on society that white culture had, by including marginalized groups, was turned into a negative buzzword, almost a slur. You aren't against Blacks, or women, or gay people. Oh no! You are anti-DEI — against Blacks, women or gay people being admitted into universities, or included in histories, or partaking in society in almost any way other than subservience. The same trick that turned fighting fascists such as our president  into the scary imaginary group "antifa."
     Consider "illegal." People who hate immigrants often take pains to explain they are against illegal immigration. Ignoring a) their concern for illegality stops at immigrants. It certainly doesn't extend to our president and his administration of corruption and crime.
     And second, that they're really against all immigrants, illegal or not, as illustrated by ICE yanking law-abiding immigrants off the street, people who came here legally and were, in some cases, attending their hearings in courts of law, or trying to. "Illegal" is a figleaf, like calling Jews Communists and international cosmopoles. Ya hate 'em anyway, yer just fishing around for reasons, as a dumb show of rationality. 
     The easiest way to illustrate the lie of waving illegality is birthright citizenship. Children born in this country are citizens, thanks for the 14th amendment, put in place to make sure that children of freed slaves would became citizens, just as their parents were. That's both the law and good social policy. Among the many good effects of birthright citizenships is it prevents the legal limbo that immigrants find themselves in from being extended into perpetuity, as it is in other countries.
     So while the children of non-citizens became citizens, legally, for 160 years by being born in this country, the Donald Trump tried to scrap it anyway by declaring, basically, the law is wrong, he's right. It's been misinterpreted by everybody, he suggests. Good thing he came along...
     Opening arguments were heard Wednesday in the Supreme Court, and shockingly — a word worn down to a nubbin at this point —Trump showed up, in person. The first president ever to do so. I was reminded of when he hovered menacingly behind Hilary Clinton during a presidential debate in 2016. (If only she had spun around and snarled, "Back off creep!" The election might have turned out very differently. Alas, she wasn't the sort. That eight second delay of hers).
      Anyway, Trump's presence did not have its desired effect. The justices picked apart the government's argument that what worked for the children of slaves somehow doesn't work for the children of immigrants. Another what I consider "ruby slipper moment" with Trump. So many people submit to him, out of a mix of misguided self-promotion, fear, star-struck wonder, whatever. Only later do they find the advantage momentary, the harm permanent, as they are chewed up and spat out, the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, being the latest to take the Walk of Shame. They could have refused. The power was in their hands all along. 
     Expect the ruling in June. But every legal mind worthy of the term is certain Trump will lose because the notion is ludicrous, the Constitution, clear. Trump is losing a lot in courts of law, lately. Which is good and bad. Good because every ounce of power taken from him is returned to the American people, where it belongs. And bad because a beast is most dangerous when it is wounded.

Flashback 2007: "Wives think their husbands are stupid"

     

     I'm taking some time off. I would hesitate to say whether I'm considered more or less stupid now than in 2007. Let's just say, I'm smart enough not to ask.

     Wives think their husbands are stupid. They have to. It's the modern way. If you're a married woman, just try saying to a female friend: "You know my husband, he's so smart. I think he's a genius."Just try. You can't, can you? Not with a straight face. Probably not at all. Your mouth won't form the words — it's as if I asked you to fire off some twisting bit of Gaelic: Is e do bhaile do chaislean.*
     My wife certainly thinks I'm an idiot. Of course, she'll deny it — I can hear her, reading the newspaper at the kitchen table, denying it to the cats, "I do not!" But you do, honey. Remember the light fixtures?
     The light fixtures in our boys' bedrooms? They were plastic — milky white inverted ziggurats from Menard's. Not elegant, but they withstood years of onslaught by flung balls and hacked light sabers and thrown stuffed animals.
     Until they didn't, until they cracked, eventually, then broke apart, beyond repair, in both rooms. I'd like to say that the boys endured the uncovered light bulbs for a year, a not-at-all-pleasant bus-station-at-3-a.m. effect. But it might have been two years. Tempus fugit.
     Eventually we bought new light fixtures — glass, vaguely breastlike affairs with an air of the 1890s — something that fits in with our ancient house. The boxes sat in the guest room for — I don't know — three months. Maybe six. Nine, tops. Waiting for my wife to call an electrician to put them up. I can do things around the house, but draw the line at electricity because Electricity Can Kill You.
     Eventually the sight of the boys in their rooms, squinting at their books under the harsh interrogation blaze of unshielded lights, overwhelmed my caution. I waited until my wife was out, then went about my task.
     Installing a light fixture is not as difficult as I imagined — you unscrew the old one, disconnect the wires, hook up the new one, then screw it in. They looked quite nice, blazing away.
     I could barely wait to show off my handiwork. My wife returned, and I ushered her upstairs. She regarded the new lights.
     "WELL, I HOPE YOU TURNED OFF THE ELECTRICITY!!!!" she cried, with alarm and a hint of rebuke. I was taken aback.
     "If I didn't turn off the electricity," I answered, through gritted teeth, "I'd already be dead."
     Yes, I suppose there are people each year who buy the ranch by working on wiring without first cutting the power. And no, I am not mocking the loss of your uncle, or father, or husband, nor suggesting he is a moron. Tragedies happen.
     But I am right now looking at the instruction sheet for the fixtures. The very first words are: "WARNING: BE SURE THE ELECTRICITY TO THE WIRES YOU ARE WORKING ON ARE SHUT OFF. . . ."
     So not shutting the power off must be an issue . . . there must be people, men, supposedly, husbands, one assumes, who go at copper wires with metal implements while the wires are still hot.
     Maybe the low opinion that wives have of their husbands is not without justification. But jeez, honey. I went to college. I know to cut the power. Give me just a little credit.
     — Originally published in the Sun-Times, Nov. 18, 2007

* "Your home is your castle." I can't believe I printed that, untranslated. Maybe I AM stupid.

Passover 2026 — remembering one difficult time in another difficult time

     This ran in the paper Wednesday, while here I deployed the mandatory April Fool's post which, I'm pleased to report, did catch some readers napping. Running a day late — or a year, or 10 — alas won't undercut the topicality of today's column.

     Passover and April Fool's. On the same day! The possibilities are endless. I feel compelled to greet our guests at Wednesday night's Seder with a hearty, "Welcome! Let's eat!"
     Not laughing? As with all jokes, it's only funny if you know the set-up: Seder means "order" in Hebrew, and the meal only comes after a protracted span of praying and storytelling. Some years we don't eat until 9 p.m.
     Makes no sense, right? Then you're probably not Jewish, like 97.5% of Americans. Jews are a shrinking shard. Rather than control the world, we can't even control our own children, who wander off, as kids will.
     My wife, in her infinite wisdom, introduced a new Seder tradition: preliminary soup. We say a few throat-clearing prayers, and then her excellent, cannonball-dense, matzo ball soup is served, to fortify participants for the hour or two until the festive meal proper begins, the exact time being a tug-of-war between grey-bearded traditionalists and the younger generation, who want to eat and race back to their real lives.
     I suppose the strictly religious might view early broth as the kind of canonical slippage that leads to Christmas trees and, eventually, even fewer Jews. I consider it kindness toward hungry relatives who have consented — heck, some traveled long distances — to endure this dusty rigmarole in return for a hearty meal, eventually, and all the wine they can hold.
     My late colleague Roger Ebert once said that his entire political view can be summed up by "kindness." I'd like to extend that to religious orientation — if your religion doesn't prompt you to be kind, first and foremost, then it's just another tool for oppression, like the others. All religions are the same in that regard, or as I've said before: religion is a hammer: you can use it to build a house, or to hit somebody in the head. Same hammer.
     Focusing on cosmetic differences seems so strange to me. "Oh, you've got an Estwing? Well, MY hammer is a Stanley. I believe the wooden handle absorbs shock better..."
     Thus fortified, antisemitism rolls off me. All bigotry is ignorance married to fear. How much mental energy should be spent getting upset that the person viewing life through a keyhole caught sight of you? Someone who has lapped up the vile poison trickling through gutters for a thousand years now wants to upchuck a bit on my shoes. How hurt am I supposed to be? "Oh boo, frickin' hoo. The knee-jerk hater who bought a load of idiotic bilge doesn't like me..."
     Maybe I'm hardened, as a newspaper columnist who hears from haters daily. I don't want to underestimate the scary turn the country has taken after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, and the current war in Iran, in lockstep with our good buddy, Israel. The latest twist on antisemitism — that Israel is a monstrous evil that should have never existed in the first place and must be stamped out by force — is certainly frightening, for its popularity, though it's really just a new set of steps to a very old dance, the classic Jews Don't Belong Here Polka. Don't know the words? You can hum along: "Life ... would be great ... but we've got these Jews here ... infesting ... INSERT LOCATION ... where they don't belong ... and we'd all ... be so much happier... if only they'd go live in ... INSERT SOME SPOT FAR AWAY.... " 

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