After dinner the kids played a game sort of like Wheel of Fortune, and the puzzles were famous couples.  You know who the first couple was.  Seriously, you do.  Yes....it was Mary and Joseph.  What a hella romance that was :).

It wasn't Josh's teacher that lorded over the game either, volunteer person.  Cleopatra and Marc Anthony were next and the facilitator was frustrated that none of the kids knew the story.  She invited them to read in a very hoity-toity tone.  She told the children they had a suicide pact.  I wanted to invite her to read something other than bodice rippers :)  Being paraded in shame through the streets of Rome, maybe executed in public, maybe living your life in chains, maybe both, had more to do with why those too offed themselves than anything....but okay.  And she was leaving out the part where Cleopatra claims that her first child is from mating with Julius Caesar first, but I get it...that's just nasty and not romantic at all.  It just smacks wickedly of survival instincts.

My how time flies.

Fine.
I admire his courage. I admire the courage of all of the test pilots in this risky endeavor.

But then the Times goes on and claims that this feat "revived national morale and hope".

To me, this was a triumph of individual courage, along with technical prowess. Personally, I cannot but be aware that we were helped in this endeavor by the former Nazi, Wernher Magnus Maximilian von Braun who helped create the V2 rocket using slave labor and dropped it on London and Antwerp.

About this lifting national morale and hope I know nothing.

National morale and hope is generally lifted by good jobs. Secure jobs. Fulfilling work. Security. A place of your own. Good, safe schools for your children. Caring health services. Some money in the bank. Being able to spend some money on a good dinner, an evening out, maybe a car. And, of course, advancement in social justice and civil liberties. Those things really boost morale.

The military aspect of our space program was and is ever-lurking. I do not feel humiliated by the achievements of another country. The rest of the world did not feel demoralized when we landed on the moon. They celebrated. Yet, the implication is that our morale was crushed by Russia having put Sputnik into orbit.

So it became another tentacle in the "cold war".

Ever since, it seems as if politicians and the people who love them have been content to measure our national well-being in terms of technical proficiency and military capability.

"Obama's greatest skill is in getting his opponents to overreach and self-destruct. And this issue could not be more tailor-made to benefit the candidate with real potential pull with far-right-wing Catholics and evangelicals: Santorum. If the GOP really makes this issue central in the next month or so, Santorum (whose campaign claims to have raised $2.2 million in the two days following his victories last week) is by far the likeliest candidate to benefit. It could finally unite the Christian fundamentalist right behind him--especially since Romneycare contained exactly the same provisions on contraception that Obamacare did before last week's compromise was announced.

That's right: Romneycare can now accurately be portrayed as falling to the left of Obamacare on the contraception issue. This could very well be the issue that finally galvanizes the religious right, especially in the South. Imagine how Santorum could use that on Super Tuesday. In fact, it could be the issue that wins him the nomination. And do you really think that would hurt Obama in the fall?"

"New Hampshire legislators appear poised to repeal the state's 2 1/2-year-old gay marriage law within the coming weeks."

"Governor John Lynch has promised a veto"

In defense of the NH public, it seems like the legislature is going rogue here, not sure what they want to accomplish unless it's not holding onto power very long.

"A recent poll by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center showed that support for gay marriage remains relatively strong. Fifty-nine percent of those polled said they are either strongly or somewhat opposed to repealing the gay marriage law, while 32 percent said they back repeal. Another 8 percent are neutral or don't know. The poll results are largely unchanged from those of a year ago."

Hopefully the veto holds.

Meanwhile, Romney continues his winning streak in New England.  He won Maine with a whopping "2,190 votes, or 39 percent, compared to 1,996 -- about 36 percent -- for Ron Paul, the only other candidate to aggressively compete in the state."  Congratulations!  It's in the bag :)

"The plan would increase the amount of campus-based financial aid: Perkins loans, low-interest government loans for low- and middle-income students; Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, a subsidy for needy students that requires no repayment; and campus-based work programs.

It would also change the formula calculating how federal financial aid is distributed, by shifting money away from schools with rising tuition to campuses holding tuition increases down."

Public university presidents are predictably crying foul, claiming that they need the money to "improve education".  But these aren't private universities, they are here to serve the public.  To me, if they are unaffordable, they aren't accomplishing that.  I can't wait for the right-wing cries of "government overreach" in a public education system.