Death By TV

My usual approach to the Republican debates is to read about them later; there's only so much lying and pandering I can take at a time. Last night, however, I was at the hospital waiting to help with a horrendoma (as we like to call really tough frustrating and dangerous operations) and the debate was on in the surgical staff lounge.

So there I sat, trying not to pay enough attention to cause a hemorrhage somewhere, when they began to address Newt's promise to have colony of 13,000 Americans on the moon by the end of his second term. (The 13,000 reference was, in fact, that when they got to that number they could apply for statehood.) Cost, in these times of deficits, was mentioned. Gee.

Anyhow, after they blathered for a while about how private business would be only too happy (or not) to invest billions in Newt's big idea, seeing as how the rewards would be, well, fundamental I guess, they got around to the biggest joke of the evening. (Fortunately, I didn't have to watch the whole thing.) Newt reminded us of the inspiration of that great conservative icon, JFK, when he promised we'd have a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Mr Gingrich out-puffed his normal puffiness as he spoke of the kids going into science after that, how they rallied and created and did stuff because of the lure of space. But now, he said sadly, kids aren't choosing the sciences, presumably because we're not thinking Gingrichian big anymore.

At which point I wanted to shout at the screen: Science??? Science!!!??? REALLY??? Suddenly you're thinking science is good, that our future might somehow depend on it??? The guy in the party that denies science at every turn, that deliberately tries to ruin the teaching of it in our schools, that laughs openly at expertise? That guy -- THAT GUY -- thinks we should be inspiring kids to go into science.

I see I called that a joke back there a paragraph or two. What was I thinking?