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July 31, 2002
Central Georgia, Near Earth Orbit, Mali, Chicago/Atlanta
From The Central Georgian Online:
Today in Black History
July 30,1983 Astronaut Guion Bluford, Jr., becomes the first African American in space.
Which, according to NASA, isn't quite accurate:
Guion S. Bluford, Jr. has the distinction of being the first African-American in space. Bluford's first mission was STS-8 (Challenger), which launched from Kennedy Space Center on August 30, 1983. STS-8 was the first shuttle to be launched and land during the night.
But it's not like anyone cares. Black folks tend to have slightly skewed takes on the whole space thing. Here's Octavia Butler, from an interview with Locus:
It seems to me we're not going to do that [move beyond near Earth orbit] for any logical reason. It's not going to happen because it's profitable it may not be. The going certainly won't be. The people who work on it will probably not live to see whether or not they've been successful. It's not like, 'In ten years, we'll go to the moon' which, unfortunately for us, we did. It might have been better if we had almost made it, but then the Russians did ahead of us. If we had lost the race to the Russians, we would be farther along in space travel. One of the reasons going to the moon was a big thing to do was Sputnik. The Russians were sending up their satellites, and ours were crashing and burning. I was a kid with her eyes glued to the television set back then in the '50s.
I'm sure I could find something at Tech Central Station saying the opposite, if the articles there didn't set me teeth on edge.
Then there's the Dogon, and then there's Sun Ra, and then there's The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership. . . and then there's the Nation of Domination:
Dekalb Countys 4th District Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has been belittled by vicious critics as an off-the-chain "wacko" and a polarizing political maverick. But to her support base, she is a passionate, courageous, savvy and substantive internationally acclaimed progressive politico; and she proudly promotes a 14-page paper detailing what she has delivered for her constituents since she was elected in 1993.
[. . .] During her brusque and revealing remarks to the [Atlanta Association of Black Journalists] group, Rep. McKinney urged the Black media professionals to search for the truth. She was invited to address allegations that the Bush administrations role in the Sept. 11 attacks, but she calculatingly focused on whats making headlinesthe nauseous news that reveals the human condition. That included the videotaped beating of a Black teenager in Inglewood, Calif., and the release of documents that purport that the U.S. government was scandalously involved in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Im so happy to be here to provide you with the real information so you can report it to the people," she gushed. "Yes, I am a fighter. I am a fighter for freedom, I am a fighter for justice, and I am a fighter for dignity."
Warbloggers should be thrilled with that last link. It has three of their favorite punching bags. The Nation of Islam, arch-villain Cynthia McKinney and niggers generally.
Oh, sorry, that last one should be "theliberalmedia". It was a typo.
Posted by Aaron at July 31, 2002 08:27 AM
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