Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom?
There are no typewriters worth interviewing any more; in 2012 one turns to Twitter, it seems, again and again it seems, which tonight had this rather lovely exchange:
John Hart @farmgeek: ISS [International Space Station] coming up in the Western sky right now - it's beautiful out.
Jackson James Wood @_jjw_: @farmgeek it's pretty amaze, right.
@farmgeek: @_jjw_ I know we have plenty of problems here on earth, but watching humans flying past, in space, fills me with hope every time. :-)
@_jjw_: @farmgeek the amount of international cooperation necessary to make it happen is staggering and heartening.
And that was it.
Your classic half-full glass; because doesn't this same vignette tell us something else, not about hope and heart, but their nemesis. Something about our priorities.* About the choices we make, and the challenges we could confront, co-operating internationally, if we chose, but seemingly, we choose not. About how we like to tell ourselves stories about ourselves, in which we star as the heroes and kings, colonisers, conquerors, masters of the universe - about our starship of self-serving enterprise. About hubris.
#ironic. It was Apollo that first showed us this. If the green movement has an iconic symbol, that would be it.
Discuss.
* (as a species. The priorities of both of the Twits in question are impeccable.)