more headlines which make no sense

"Obama wants to ax moon mission, privatize space travel. Republicans favor big government bureaucracy status quo."

That whole space thing is getting really confusing. In the sense that the "big government bureaucracy status quo" actually was one of the few government successes (it did after all put a moon mission together, caught up to the Soviets, exhibited national and humanistic pride by that accomplishment), that's fine. The question is whether we should continue that at public expense for nationalistic purposes. We've already been to the moon. Why would we need to go back? We already built the Sears Tower, why do we need to build it again? That sort of thing. But the fact that it is the REPUBLICANS who are defending these strange public expense ventures (of a mostly non-defence spending aspect), this is truly confusing. There is no rational and fundamental reason to send manned missions off to Mars at this time. Certainly not for the purposes of national pride for the glory of America and its planting of flags. For all the things that conservatives are perfectly willing to privatize, including, given the history of Xe/Blackwater, the military and national security, the idea that space exploration shouldn't be one of these makes this a very, very strange world.

This was by far the strangest justification: "The “Seinfeld “era is not an era for Odyssean adventures." I'm not an expert on the Odyssey. It's a been a while since I read it (the Iliad was a better read for me). But I recall a lot of mishaps and misfortunes besetting Odysseus and his hapless crew as he attempts to voyage home and tempts the humility of man against god.

That's hardly the example one wants on our minds in the presence of space flight, which, among many other ventures of human beings is one of the greatest prides "against god" as it were, and has already a history of famous mishaps. Before even trying to get back to the moon or to Mars. And many of them at public expense, rather than at the cost of personal pride.

Other weird things in the news:
I haven't seen any blow back yet for Obama doing a few minutes of the Georgetown-Duke telecast with Kellogg and Lundquist on Saturday other than the focus on his serious repose throughout (which is more or less how I watch games in person, so it's really confusing for me personally).

I am less amused by theories that Presidents should be doing nothing with their time but sit around and work at hard problems for Americans. I think this mistakes two things. First that Presidents are actually still human beings and have private wants and amusements of their own, like basketball games, which are somehow made to be unofficial functions that they still must conduct with a certain amount of dignity. Look at the "requirements" for throwing out the first pitch at an All-Star or World Series game for people who are rarely if ever former baseball players and the ideal that Obama somehow must not betray some obvious appreciation for a good play much less a rooting interest, other than his beloved White Sox or Bulls, which many fans would probably forgive with his being from Illinois. I much prefer Obama when he acts like a human being, makes a few jokes, swats a fly, wears his tired and baggy jeans to throw out a pitch, and so on because it keeps me aware of the second problem: that Presidents should not be the source of our physical salvation for all our problems. That's our job. Presidents are entitled with certain legal powers and a somewhat broad mandate to conduct foreign policy (for the purposes of national security). They don't have a job lever under the desk that preserves our mortgages and fiscal security and cannot give us better educations and so on. And they do still like to watch a football or basketball game once in a while. Reagan famously didn't work these long hours when he was in office. I can't get worked up about it when Obama (inevitably) takes an hour or two to fill out a March Madness bracket for ESPN on TV.

Sorry, but that complaint is just about as stupid as the Republicans whining about private and international space exploration instead of publicly funding NASA for extravagant future missions. If you need an idea how hard he's working at the job, watch his hair from the campaign to now. You can track Presidential tiredness and effort by looking at the physical tolls it takes on the men we appoint to the office (Lincoln is the most famous visible example, one assumes FDR experienced this, there's also the famous Kennedy painting and photos of him standing alone looking as though the weight of the world is on him). Obama is a roughly young man by comparison to our usual preference, so he should have somewhat more energy than, say, another Reagan would, but even he isn't immune to the ravages of pressure and time.