Kirwan Articles 

A Beautiful Butterfly Bolted to a Bullet

February 4, 2003

On the CBS program, Sunday Morning, one of the early astronauts was asked how he saw the Space Shuttle program. He said that when he watched the launch it reminded him of "A beautiful butterfly bolted to a bullet." That rather stark phase is very hard to forget.

Challenges and quests that involve the human spirit have always needed support from the scientific and business communities in every age, and ours is no different. What is different is that now people have the capacity, through television and historical research, to know far more about the destinations and difficulties of these ventures into the 'unknown' than ever before.

This is not to say that the scientific disciplines have not added immeasurably to man's knowledge, as well as to the vivid dreams of all visionary's. The Hubble Telescope alone has pointed the way to far richer and more challenging depths in space than anyone has thus far ever dared to dream about. With the wonder of its pictures, Hubble has shown the human race that there are depths to the universe that can beckon men and women everywhere. Deep space depths point to the need for all of us to collect ourselves, for vastly different journeys that still exceed our most creative thoughts.

For all the promises of space, and all the possibilities in exploration, in reality we know we cannot leave this unfinished and badly damaged world or ours - Not yet. Because this place, this earth of ours, is something that we unmake with each and every passing moment. Wealth and resources may have always driven our eternal quest for knowledge: But just as art has known for centuries what business has only now begun to marvel at - Ultimately, it's been the dreams of all of us that have kept the possibilities alive. This brings us to the liquidation of the butterfly upon re-entry to the atmosphere; perhaps an all too vivid metaphor for where we find ourselves today.

The events surrounding the end of Columbia's final mission left far more questions than the variants possible to the answers given. This in many ways has begun to degenerate into conspiracy theories, name-calling and blame assessments that have little to do with the facts. We could all benefit from remembering that each of us is entitled to an opinion. When the opinions of others don't match the ones we hold - we should perhaps all take a breath and think a little more about the substance being questioned.

The deaths of seven astronauts appear to be more than a bit overblown. Perhaps what matters is not the number of deaths, but who dies? When the little people, the faceless ones, the poor and helpless people who starve by the thousands daily, die - that's not news. But when seven very special, very educated, very promising individuals die-how is that somehow worthy of intense coverage? The astronauts died in what could be termed an expectable risk (this has always been a major part of the Space Program), but to listeners of the news, anyone would think that this event was an 'international tragedy!'

Whether there was some dire act that caused the disintegration of the shuttle or whether this was another case of sloppy sub-contractors cutting corners, or in the final analysis whether this was just something critically pivotal that developed on its own - maybe if we focus on these things -- maybe we're missing the point.

Many have chosen to make this the issue, because there are so many artificially created scenarios currently making the rounds. Under the terms of the USA PATRIOT act and HOMELAND Security, this has become the norm today. In virtually every aspect of American life, the new Lock-Down has begun to make this new government control felt. As this is now the case, people could hardly be blamed for looking at the principles for planned disasters-yet none of this comes close to the real point. Beneath all the flags and flowers, the speeches and the politicians, the point is that this society has taken their precious time to salute only the very few. American society has always ignored all the rest of us who are not part of the Elite. Until this changes, none of us will be ready to venture beyond nature's boundaries for this world. But more importantly, we are all going to be responsible for whatever comes next!

A very long time ago, an ancient wise man by the name of Solon said:

"Justice will only be achieved when those who are not injured by crime feel as indignant as those who are."
www.kirwanesque.com/politics/california/cal2.htm 

The absence of the sense in this idea, quoted above, is what underlies this media-driven gush about the "tragic deaths of those heroes aboard Columbia." These were just people doing what they chose to do and knowing full well the risks-which for each of them was a well known part of the venture they undertook. These were risks directly associated with the job, and these risks were something that everyone knew might become a reality, at any given time, on any given mission. So because this was true for everyone on that flight, the use of the word 'tragedy' has to be ruled out, because it was a viable expectation that was pre-figured in the equation that led each member of that crew to sign on. This could be said to be part of the price for living the dream.

Conversely the deaths of millions from lack of food and water, from the lack of simple sanitation - these are some of the real tragedies that we mostly ignore. And they are tragedies because they were and are preventable. The world simply doesn't care about 'those people' (so they become just statistics who do not qualify as tragic figures - merely poor ones).

Just think what we might have learned IF the media had gone after the congress to demand an investigation into the attacks on 9/11? What if the media had investigated the elections of 2000 with the same zeal they now want to use to explore the decrepit space agency that has been cash starved for years?

What about our fearless 4th estate, where was their intrepid reporting on any recent political events? Why was there no careful scrutiny of the USA PATRIOT act? Where were the sensible questions that should have surrounded the HOMELAND Security fiasco - 170,000 employees - and who knows how many agencies that are under the direction of someone with the personality of a fire hydrant? Please America - Where have all the questions gone?

If the media wants to get truly aggressive, why has no one ever questioned the whole cadre of failed creatures that were resurrected from the dead years of the 70's and the greedy times of the 1980's? Who in the government approved of people like Richard Perle, Otto Reich, Richard Armitage or John Negroponte (now US ambassador to the UN)? Where were the heart-rending speeches from the media, these passionate and sentimental journalists in their intrepid search for answers?
http://www.accessatlanta.com/

All the Bush administration's purported 'facts' are dead wrong. Beginning in Venezuela, where the compromised US media is reporting a strike when there is actually a corporate lockout. This action was designed to bring down the government of that country. What idiot can't see what this is doing for the world price of oil now - not even after the War starts - but now! And who benefits from the price increases in oil on the world market? Is there a connection between the personalities in the Bush administration and the White House with the oil conglomerates and all their multi-national friends?

But the true last straw is the assumption that this War on Freedom and the World could ever go down without any real resistance or any global repercussions throughout the civilized world - but especially in the other oil producing regions of this planet.

And finally one must ask the sell-outs that claim to be journalists - just exactly how it is that these supposed business tycoons have suddenly come to believe that war will somehow be good for the economy? Every person who has any passing acquaintance with the world of business knows that real wars are the blood-enemy of sound and growing business practices. Those same people also know that war is the bosom buddy of corporate theft, black-market profits and endless numbers of possible regime changes that could easily take place under cover of the 'state of war.' All of this would play in directly to the imbalance being sought by the White House in the new state of global affairs.

Where have all the journalists gone? Oh I see - they're too busy covering the end of Columbia's mission. A mission that gave the world a fiery kind of personal death that was almost antiseptic because it was so beautifully distant. The coming events in Iraq will give the television cameras a massive display of firepower such as the world has never before seen. And once that starts, the events surrounding Columbia won't be even a blip in the memory compared to what the world will see in the skies over the Middle East. All of that will be coming soon - to this planet!

Will the journalists of American media chose to cover the war - or will their choice be pre-empted by our military censors?

I can't stop seeing that butterfly bolted to that bullet - NO wait! That's not a butterfly, they're people and that's not the shuttle it's a cruise missile!