The Week's Nearly Done...

Yesterday was the 25^th anniversary of the launching of STS-1, the first Space Shuttle mission. The official NASA STS-1 home page has video and interviews with mission commander John Young and pilot Robert Crippen. The initial flight of Columbia was delayed so many times that a joke began circulating that by the time the shuttle actually made it into space the crew would have to be renamed from Young and Crippen to “Old and Crippled.”

Interestingly, April 12^th is the date Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, exactly 20 years to the day before STS-1 roared into space. I remember both events vividly, Gagarin’s flight more so than the initial flight of the Space Shuttle. In 1961, Khrushchev was in the Kremlin, Gagarin was in space, and the whole of the USA panicked: we just knew the end was nigh. Six weeks later President Kennedy announced the Apollo program to a joint session of Congress, and as they say…“the rest is history.”

In a comment to this post, Lou said “Why is it that when a man turns gray, it looks sophisticated, but when women go gray it looks like the tabby cat?” and inadvertently hit one of my hot buttons. Personally, I find much beauty in the older woman…more beauty, actually, than in those “artfully” manipulated, air-brushed images of impossibly thin (anorexic, even) young(er) women we’re bombarded with every time we turn around. Maybe it’s a function of my age, maybe it isn’t. Many years ago, when Son Number One was around 19 or 20 years old, he scored big points with TSMP and a couple of her friends when he declared he was gonna found a “Society for the Appreciation of Mature Women.” Of course, “mature” to a 20 year-old meant a woman around 35 or so. Nonetheless, SN1 hit the nail on the head. I find beauty in the confidence an older woman has, the fact she’s “been there, done that,” the wisdom in her eyes, the fine lines of experience, the grace and elegance that comes only with age. And yes, the gray, silver, or white, too.

When it comes to trees we celebrate the blossoms of spring, the full leafy green of summer, and the wondrous, brilliant golds, reds, and yellows of autumn…with no implication that one season is better than the other. We seem to be locked into eternal spring where people are concerned, however. One of the better fall-out effects of aging Baby Boomers will be an increasing appreciation for the beauties of age, if only among the self-absorbed members of that generation. Hopefully, the appreciation will spread across all generations. But I kinda doubt it.

She’s Baaaack… She Who Will Not Be Named returns to Crawford. So what? I predict she’ll get a lot less, much less, press this time around. Your 15 minutes are up, SWWNBN.

OK, so which is it? Years, as the analysts quoted in the NYT seem to be saying, or less…much less, as Captain Ed speculates? Whether it’s years, months, or whatever, the Iranians have openly stated they will press on, and the West can just pound sand. Pound sand, or pound Natanz. I prefer the latter. Sooner rather than later.