Yesterday

In the midst of the Fringe madness, I forgot that yesterday was the 27th anniversery of the first moonwalk. A feat that both inspires and saddens me.

In 1969 we sent three men 225,000 miles through space to land on the moon. They landed, got out of the spacecraft and walked around, got back in and returned safely to Earth. Keep in mind that in 1969 we had just barley invented the computer, yet here we were landing men on another planet.

Sadly, the race to reach the moon was born largely out of fear. The fear that the Soviet Union would develop rocket technology superior to our own, putting us at a disadvantage where the potential use of nuclear weapons was concerned.

As you read the paper, you are reminded how little has changed since 1969. North Korea's missle tests on July 4th are a reminder of the very real danger we face from the continued existence of nuclear weapons. Ethnic and religious violence in Africa and the Middle east continues unabated. The AIDS crisis in Africa. Intolerence of differences so extreme that people would accept amending the US Constitution to prohibit same sex mairrage. The list goes on and on.

In the film Apollo 13, Tom Hanks' character says of the moon landing, "It wasn't a miracle. We just decided to go."

One wonders what would happen if we "just decided" to make the world a better place. To bring and end to violence and hatred, poverty, disease, hunger, intolerence.

The human mind contains every possibility. To solve the world's problems does not take a miracle.

We just need to decide to do it.