Je T’aime, Petite Croissant
Posted on | February 26, 2010 | 1 Comment
Like clockwork, every morning at 8:30, amid the wafting scent of olive ciabattas and glazed panini, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin moan and groan as they engage in simulated sodomy. My representative sample is not exact and there was most certainly no double-blind study involved, since I don’t arrive to the bakery at the exact same time every day, but nevertheless the frequency with which I purchase pastry and yogurt to the sound of buttsecks is unsettling. Is that like a wake-up song on a local radio station? Or do they only have a single approved CD that they play incessantly hitting the sexy spot every hour on the half-hour mark? If so, I can only pity the poor employees and perchance hatch a plot to exploit them manchu-candidate style.
On a croissant-related note, it would seem that a few major news sources from the west have caught up to the fact that with Constellation now dead, it would seem that the sole player left in the race to return to the Moon is China. This is a situation intriguing from multiple points, not the least of those ideological – China is one of the surviving sociopolitical systems of the sixties still kickin’ it with the same intensity. The western capitalism vs. Soviet communism dichotomy went to the shitter and morphed into a tangled undecipherable mess where ideologies are all over the place. China, along with similar-minded but resource-wise inferior states like North Korea, is the type of country where doing something for the prestige of it or simply to use it as a focal point for national unity would seem to be a valid motivation. Sort of panem et circenses for the early XXI century. Other countries are poking around up there as well, but none of them seem to be moving towards sending canned-monkeys into the Moon’s gravity well, and the fact that they are mostly neighbors with China and therefore, like all neighbors, in rather, ahem, delicate relationships, makes potential cooperation unlikely.
Of course, the Chinese themselves are in no hurry. Western media is grappling with ill-translated and even iller-understood proclamations from Chinese officials, trying to decipher whether the Moon-shot was canceled, planned not to happen, or simply not on the schedule yet. For the moment a recurrence of the space-race is highly improbable, since China is taking things one step at a time – first conduct unmanned exploration, and then see about getting men up there, and then see about building a permanent moonbase, all of this while in the west we seem to be obsessed about collecting reasons why sending people into space is not going to happen. While I’m not holding my breath (ten+ years would be one hell of a bout of apnea) and am fully aware that most space opera and even most hard-SF flies straight out the window when considering the realities of living in space, it would seem that it is not yet time to forget the idea of monkeys in space. Even if it might be time to forget the idea of western democracy conquering the final frontier.
Tags: china > constellation > ideologies > moon > moon mission > moonbase > Science > space exploration
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February 26th, 2010 @ 17:23
For the record, I always hated that period in French music, especially Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin! And I still do! The reason: Radio stations played them only when they don’t know what else to play (the other is rock ballad compilation “Lady in Red” aaaargh), and they especially liked playing their songs late at night (which is totally stupid, since you can only fall asleep with that kind of slowness and affectation..).
Ps. I didn’t know Russia abandoned the moon race…I understand they plan to deploy a base there in 2015 and start harvesting of Helium-3 by 2025. I think USA joined the race only to be competition (I think it was Bush who chose a location for US base on the moon, 4 years back), but it seems they overestimated their $$ balance :)))