The First Cold War

A redux

Yesterday was pure joy, following along with Artemis II’s crew, seeing glorious photos of the Moon and even an Earthrise…what wonder, perspective, and true nerd joy.

This morning we awoke to this message from the President:

I wrote and released “The First Cold War” as part of a duo project with Mark Addison called onetwothreescream. It was a reaction to the first Trump administration, and it was North Korea and nukes that time. Now it’s Iran.

I won’t ramble on. It’s tiring. It’s old. We’ve gotten glimpses of the best of humanity more often lately. We have Olympians gathering across borders to show what sportsmanship, perseverance, mental health, and self-care mean. We have Astronauts doubling as poets from space, describing their view out the window to Mission Control and the rest of us listening 250,000 miles down below from the other side of the Moon. Millions of people dancing to Bad Bunny on the Super Bowl because one CANNOT DENY that groove when it starts oh my god, you cannot. It’s so good.

The best of all of us is better than all these small men. They bubble up, cyclically. Try to blow it all up, for what? Some more money and a burnt up shell of a crisply skeletonized planet? I don’t get it. I never will.

"In all of this emptiness — this is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe — you have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together. This is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing, and that we've gotta get through this together." - Astronaut Victor Glover / Artemis II