With NASA getting out of the way, free market heads to outer space

By David McElroy · April 27, 2012

Cleaning out the notebook again…

Is private industry ready to head into space to save humanity? It’s very possible. Less than a week after I wrote that I’m happy to see the space shuttle program go away, a group of impressive investors has announced a company called Planetary Resources, which plans to mine asteroids and finally bring real commerce to space.

This is the sort of venture that NASA would never have attempted. Although the comparison isn’t perfect, I’d say it’s reminiscent of the European trading companies that were set up to colonize and trade in the New World. It’s the brainchild of Peter Diamandis, the guy who created the X Prize Foundation. The star-studded list of investors includes both of Google’s founders, an early Google investor, a key early Microsoft employee and Ross Perot Jr. Their previous success doesn’t guarantee anything, but I wouldn’t bet against them.

The best things about the venture are that taxpayers aren’t footing the bill and that anyone else can choose to compete on a level playing field if he wants to. It’s great to see people step up to blast off into space with a motivation to make money.

The truth about George Zimmerman is a lot more complicated and nuanced than some people wanted us to see. Many people have already convicted him of murder and are convinced that it was nothing but a racially motivated killing. Reuter’s has a long and detailed story that paints a far more interesting picture of how we got to this point.

I still don’t claim to know the complete facts of what happened that night and I still think it’s a tragedy that Trayvon Martin died. But I’m more convinced than ever that this is something far more than racial bias. I think it’s a case of a neighborhood that had been terrorized by burglars who happened to be young black men. When Zimmerman and others had spotted some of the actual burglars, the criminals got away before police could get there. I assume Zimmerman thought he was likely seeing one of the burglars in the neighborhood again. He turned out to be wrong and Martin died. I still don’t think we’ll ever know who initiated the violent conflict they had.

One of Zimmerman’s black neighbors told Reuter’s the race of the burglars hasn’t been discussed enough:

“Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I’m black, OK?” the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. “There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood,” she said. “That’s why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin.”

I don’t know exactly what Zimmerman should have done differently, partly because I don’t know exactly what triggered the shooting. But what’s becoming more obvious is that the situation was created by the fact that young burglars who happened to be black created an atmosphere of suspicion for other young blacks in the neighborhood. I’m not sure what the neighborhood was supposed to do — since police weren’t catching the burglars until then.

If we want to pin the blame for Martin’s death on someone, I would suggest that the criminals who created the climate of fear are good candidates for a very large share of blame. I highly recommend you read the Reuter’s story, no matter what you think about the Zimmerman case up until this point.

Have you ever paid attention to military advertising? There was an recruiting ad for the Marines that was shown during the previews before a movie I saw Wednesday. The pitch is brilliant. It’s a perfect mix of testosterone-fueled glory and high-minded appeals to idealism. It creates the impression that a young man can find glory for himself in the service of saving the world. Unfortunately, the reality of our modern wars doesn’t match the promise of the ads, so they’re ultimately lies. They’re just slick Hollywood productions. The killing and dying and broken lives are the reality, in far too many cases.

Does anybody know what news is these days? I’m not sure. Take a look at what a television station in Springfield, Mo., used as its lead story for a newscast recently. It was about a kindergarten child pooping in her pants because of a disagreement about when she should be allowed to go to the restroom. (No, I’m not making this up.) This is a very serious and important story for the girl’s family and maybe even for the teacher and principal. But this is not news. I’ve written before that I’m not entirely sure we know what news is now, but stories such as this one make me certain that the people making news decisions are even more clueless than I realized.

I’ve decided that I have to stop saying, “How stupid can you people be?” because some people have been taking this as a challenge.

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I’ve come to believe that some of us — including me — aren’t very good at knowing how to be happy. I don’t mean that in the sense that happy talk and positive thinking should be able to make us happy regardless of the circumstances. I mean that some of us had so much experience with being unhappy when we were young that we were trained to be unhappy — and that being happy is an unconsciously uncomfortable thing. When I look at times in my past when I should have been happy, it rarely lasted. I believe now that I found reasons to be unhappy — and caused real problems for myself — because being comfortable and happy felt so foreign to my programming. If I’m right, this means that some of us have to do more than just change our circumstances. It means we have to learn how to accept the happiness that we unconsciously fear we don’t deserve.

After I wrote last night about being happy, I thought of an old song that mirrored what I was feeling. After listening to the entire album, I found it remarkable how well the emotions of that music match my own heart at this point in my life. Bob Bennett’s “Matters of the Heart” came out while I was in college. Even after all these years, it holds up really well, and you can listen to the entire album on YouTube. The specific song which matched my feelings last night was “Madness Dancing,” but I still find every song on the album to be strong with the exception of the eighth and ninth. (The song about his parents, called “1951,” is especially poignant.) In fact, the opening and closing songs paint a picture of my heart at its best now in these lines: “A light shining in this heart of darkness, A new beginning and a miracle, Day by day the integration of the concrete and the spiritual.” It’s old music that you’ve probably never heard, but it means a lot to me.

Narcissists tend to turn their children into narcissists — and since a narcissist doesn’t realize he or she is a narcissist, there’s no bad intent. How does this happen? I watched a YouTube video over the weekend from an Australian psychologist who does a nice job of summarizing how it works. None of this is new to me, but I thought it was useful for those who haven’t spent years digging through books and articles about it. The same psychologist has an excellent summary of something which confuses a lot of people about narcissism. You’ve all seen examples of the loud, boisterous and overbearing narcissist, but what about the ones who are more introverted and vulnerable? This type is called a covert narcissist (or a vulnerable narcissist), and this is what my father was. In the first video, I strongly see myself in the ways my father treated me and in the second video, I see what my father was almost successful in making me become.

It’s National Dog Day in the U.S. and Lucy is here to remind you to go express love and appreciation to your favorite canine. Not only does your doggie friend give you love and affection, but he or she also protects your home from intruders — such as birds, squirrels, mail carriers and other undesirables who deserve to be barked at vigorously. Where would we be without that? And if you think this service is actually unnecessary, ask yourself how long it’s been since your home was the victim of a vicious squirrel attack. See? The doggie defense works. Keep barking at ’em, Lucy.

I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time over the last couple of years thinking and writing about love and connection. I’ve come to understand that this lack of love and connection is at the root of a lot of human tragedy and unhappiness, including addictions and depression. As I talked with others and researched the psychology behind the issues, I ran into the surprising fact that researchers are increasingly using psychedelic drugs to allow volunteers to have experiences which are giving them a sense of connection which they’ve lost — something that allows them to feel connected to love and God in a way they didn’t understand before — which is having dramatic effects in combating things such as depression and addictions. In this 15-minute TED talk — without an audience in the age of COVID-19 — Johns Hopkins researcher Mary Cosimano shares her experiences with guided psilocybin sessions being used to treat addiction, depression and end-of-life issues. One of her key observations is the importance of love and connection. She said that it seems love is literally part of the answer. In her role as director of guide/facilitator services for the program, Cosimano is responsible for training and supervising session facilitators.

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