The Problem with Time Travel

I recently saw, and was amused by, this Abstruse Goose comic:

http://abstrusegoose.com/526

History buffs are often asked (in the process of making an acquaintance) what time period they'd like to inhabit, or at least to visit for a little while. I find that I tend to give answers as if I were white, male, and Christian (my main area of interest is pre-modern and early modern Europe). After all, the Scientific Revolution, or Republican Rome, or the Italian Renaissance are fascinating times to have been alive if you weren't being downtrodden, persecuted, or discriminated against. (I imagine that, being both female and Asian, I would have twice as much difficulty as either of the above characters. I wonder if the probability of death by persecution would increase logarithmically with each undesirable trait?) If I were to actually consider the logistics of visiting a particular time and place, I'd be largely limited to China and, well... there really isn't a good historical era in which to be female.

Abstruse Goose: The Beneficence of Others

My mother reads the Chinese newspapers, which are chock-full of articles that aren't quite news (recipes, health tips, celebrity gossip, &c.). There was recently a spate of (somewhat alarmist) reports about a few instances of people falling, or even being pushed, onto subway tracks here in New York; she has subsequently warned my sister and I, in all seriousness, that we had to hypervigilant, in case crazy people randomly went about pushing us into the paths of oncoming trains. 

I thought this Abstruse Goose was fitting:

http://abstrusegoose.com/479

Abstruse Goose: In Cabin'd Ships at Sea

Whitman in the modern age (courtesy of Brett):

http://abstrusegoose.com/477
(You may have to click on the image to make the font a more legible size.)

It frustrates me to no end when people claim that poetry written long ago is irrelevant to life today. Part of the appeal of literature is its timelessness -- that while the specific time and place depicted might be past, human nature has not changed over the centuries. (I maintain that the Oedipus Cycle is one of the original family dramas. Would anything that messed up air on modern television? (Wait, A Game of Thrones is now on HBO. I take that back.))

Seriously, if you think poetry is outdated, quote your girlfriend some Yeats or Neruda or Shakespeare. Or, if you have a boyfriend, some Anne Bradstreet or Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

NYTimes: Atlantis, or, the End of an Era

The last mission of the NASA space shuttle program departed today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/09/science/space/09shuttle.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

I realize I'm unusually nostalgic when it comes to space exploration, and the shuttle in particular (I discuss it in a previous post, which, ironically, is about what was projected to be Atlantis's last flight.), but I still can't quite believe that the last shuttle is being decommissioned.

NASA is exploring alternatives in human spaceflight, but it will be a long while before the United States achieves anything close to its shuttle-based capabilities with other technologies. In the interim, I would be concerned for the space program, especially its ability to make an impression on potential recruits. Nothing inspires starstruck kids as much as human spaceflight -- I would know (as a child, I harbored dreams of becoming an astronaut).

While private ventures, like SpaceX, are doing an admirable job of innovating for the next generation of human spaceflight, much like the European explorers setting sail in the 1600s who were often funded by merchants and investors, they ultimately still need the backing of a government that can chart the course of not one mission, but an entire exploration program. Since human spaceflight does not produce immediate profits, require a longer view than most private ventures can tolerate, and involves more intricate international (political) interaction than most other industries, the government's role is still critical.

Let's see what takes the place of the space shuttle. In the hearts and minds of many space enthusiasts, it will continue to represent an era of great accomplishments and greater dreams.

Or, this Abstruse Goose, anyone?