A Look in My Mirror

For some reason I begin watching videos claiming to prove we did not go to the moon and others that debunk the myth.  It is fascinating to watch.  I am convinced we traveled to the moon.  The only reason I can think of for faking the whole thing would be as a moral boast to the nation.  We were in the middle of a cold war and Vietnam.  Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot the year before.  Race riots had occurred.  The hippie movement was in full swing.  Generally people were becoming disillusioned and unsettled.  The moon mission was a distraction from all that was happening.  It united Americans in a feeling of national pride, even if it was short lived.  An astute observer of human nature would have understood this.  That argument doesn’t convince me it was faked.  As one website points out (yes it is a humor website but that doesn’t make it untrue) tens of thousands of people would have to be lying for the hoax to be real.  Keeping a secret that big is near impossible.  So, I think believing in the hoax theory is insane.

One interesting tidbit though.  I found one conspiracy theorist who claims NASA discovered either and alien base or the ruins of an alien civilization on the dark side of the moon.  The theory states that this secret has been discovered by other nations and that is why so many of them have begun a race to reach the moon.  They want to be able to harness the alien technology on the moon.  These nations include Iran, China, Japan, and many other nations.  In response, NASA, which is a division of the department of defense, has launched a nuclear device they will detonate on October 9 of this year to destroy the alien technology.  NASA’s website mentions a mission LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, which will launch a probe into the moon’s surface on Oct. 9th but no mention nuclear weapons.  I guess in a couple of months we shall see.  If it is a nuclear device, let’s hope it doesn’t throw off the moon’s orbit.  Boy wouldn’t we be in trouble then.

p.s. the conspiracy website includes a petition asking NASA not to destroy the moon, if you want to fill it out.

Prop 8 passed in California.  This, for those of you who don’t know, bans marriage between gays and lesbians.  They still have the option for a civil union though.  My question is this, why is the government even involved.  The role of the government in relationships is generally to agree that a contract is binding or not.  They have no other role.  Whether you call it a civil union or marriage, basically it is a contract between two people to share their property, money, and any other assets.  If there are children, pets, or other items that need caring for, the two people involved also agree to split the responsibility for taking care of them.  That is as far as the government should go, granting people these contractual rights.

I have a simple solution to the whole matter, eliminate the term marriage from government documents and replace it with civil union.  That is what the government is endorsing anyway, a contractual obligation between two people.  This infers that that the couple have the right to form the contract they desire and they receive all the rights and benefits the contract entitles them to receive.

The argument for using the term marriage is a religious argument anyway.  Evangelicals read the bible and interpret it a certain way.  Marriage is a covenant that God has set out for those who follow him.  For them it is an abomination for two people of the same sex to engage in sexual acts.  Believing God has condemned these sexual acts, they believe that anyone who follows God should not engage in these acts.  Inside marriage, sex is allowed and encouraged.  Therefore, if it is an abomination for homosexuals to engage in sex acts, then they must not be followers of God, therefore they should not be allowed to marry.  Those that support gay marriage see the bible differently.  They believe God does not condemn people.  He is a God of love and as long as people serve him, then their sexual preference does not matter.  He will always love them.  Therefore, marriage is okay because God doesn’t condemn.

Which ever side you fall on is your choice.  But the government shouldn’t be taking sides on any religious matter.  By recreating the contract we call marriage, into a civil union, the government removes itself from the religious argument.  The civil union license could then be the governments acknowledgement that the contract the two people are entering into is valid.  As long as two people or one government official, say the Justice of the Peace, witness the couple agreeing to the contract, it then doesn’t matter if there is a ceremony involved.  Then the debate of whether to call the union a marriage or not falls to the churches to decide.  If one church will perform a ceremony for a gay couple, that is their choice, as the interpret the bible.  Another church, who interprets the bible differently, can then choose not to allow a gay couple to marry in their church.

Besides, the ideal marriage should be between two people who love each other and God.  Marriage then becomes a matter of your conscience and your religious beliefs.

I have been reading a book called Judgement on Nuremberg.  It was written by a UNC professor William J. Bosch.  His focus is not on the trials themselves but on American reaction to the trials.  He draws from material in the public record and other works written about the trials.  Some of the people he talks about raise some interesting questions.  So far I have read through his Presidential and international law sections.  The international law part really raised some questions.  Mainly, I was wondering how the precedents set at Nuremberg would translate today and how many people would support trials of current leaders.  One of the best points is that before Nuremberg war was considered a morally neutral event.  It was considered a tool in a nations arsenal if they felt they could not achieve their ends any other way.  The idea of trying leaders of the warring nations was unthinkable.  But Nuremberg criminalized acts of aggression and placed the responsibility on the shoulders of the leaders of the nations who started wars.

How would it be viewed in today’s light.  Should Bush and his allies be tried for starting a war, no matter the justification?  What is the liability of the leaders of nations that start wars?  Where does Osama Bin Laden fit into the scheme?  Should he face a similar tribunal or should he only face judgement in the nations where attacks occurred?  Who else should face judgement?  It is pointed out that Julius Streicher, the head of an anti-semitic newspaper was sentenced and hanged though he never actually ordered anyone to do anything.  He was the head of the leading propaganda machine that fueled the anti-semitic fire.  Who else should face trial?  CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, Rush Limbaugh, etc, all of these and more can be accused of fueling the war against Afghanistan and Iraq in some way.  If there were trials, should they and the people who head their organizations face execution?  It is interesting questions to ponder.

Ultimately I believe that the victor sets the story line.  None of these will happen because we have basically won the war, it’s the rebuilding that has been the issue.  Also, no nation on Earth would dare set a finger on Americans because they fear the American military and the allies we have on our side.  so Nuremberg could not happen today, but it is interesting to debate “what-ifs.”

I am sure many of you have heard of the murder of Eve Carson.  She was the student body president of UNC and was loved by most on campus.  The arrested two young men and charged them with her murder and a spree of other crimes.  So, is it their fault they were out early in the morning murdering a young woman.  Of course not it was education’s fault, as this letter writer to our local paper says.  When can we place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the offenders responsible for these horrendous crimes?