My first and only trip to Mars was unpleasant and very much like reading the headlines over the past several days.
It seemed like a grand idea at the time, about 10 years ago. I was in the best science museum in the world, which is in London and cleverly called, “The Science Museum,” when my then 7-year-old daughter and I were offered a ride in a simulator “headed” to Mars.
Big mistake. This was no carney ride, folks. It really, really looked like a spaceship. Inside, it was cramped with a giant viewer screen that erupted into an explosively real 3-D view of a raucous trip through space while the ship bucked and dodged asteroids and my lunch. Ack.
I practically threw myself through the hatch to get out of the thing after we landed.
I’ve had a similar sensation this week reading headlines from my seat at the news desk.
The continuing melodrama in Florida, where neighborhood “watcher” George Zimmerman shot to death 17-year-old Trayvon Martin after who-knows-what happened, is revolting. Who knows what creepy Florida officials will do about the creepy guy who just loved strapping one on and letting everyone know he was doing it.
But lost on so many people is the fact that a boy was shot to death during what was at the worst an assault on a bossy neighbor. That kid is dead. He might have been nothing more than a symbolic target of hate for every racist in the country, but right now, he’s just a dead kid.
Just as distasteful is the near giddy coverage of the unsavory “tribute” Titanic cruise. If you’re off the grid, the event is sort of a cross between Night of the Stars and Ship of Fools, where celebrities and their frothy fans have boarded the MC Balmoral to “retrace” the course of the ill-fated Titanic in “celebration” of the 100th Anniversary of the ship’s sinking.
How sick is that? Of the 2,223 passengers on the ship, 1,517 died. So, let’s party? The Balmoral isn’t running the only “tribute” cruise. There are booze-cruises and island yachtings offered all over the country to honor those who died a cruel and needless death in the frigid ocean. So what’s next, America? Pompeii pu pu parties? How about Auschwitz Tupperware tributes? Please, let me off this thing.
Closer to home, communities across the state are getting ready to eat each other alive in hopes of winning all or part of about $50 million in state funds to create some sort of tourist thing to help raise money to fix the potholes that help send tourists home grumpy. At the top of the list of competing plans that make sense is Aurora’s Gaylord hotel and convention center-a-saurus on the north side of the city. And Douglas County’s proposal to build yet another soccer-mom-sunburn-salon? Not so much. Less ridiculous is a proposal to take money away from the Gaylord project by building a recreation park in Estes Park. But, seriously? Like Rocky Mountain National Park, the Stanley Hotel as well as the largest assortment of salt-water taffy flavors and arrowhead wind chimes in the world isn’t enough to bring hordes of Iowans to the state every summer? And a plan for a riverwalk entertainment complex in Glendale? Ack.
Of course there’s more. The Associated Press this week reports that there is such a giant glut of natural gas in storage, much of it right here in Colorado, that there’s no place to store any more. It’s pushing the price of natural gas so low, that gas and drilling companies are losing stock value — all except for one. You guessed it: Xcel Energy. Seen anything meaningful in the way of lower utility bills at your house lately? I didn’t think so. Somebody has to keep paying to fly those hardworking Xcel execs from Minnesota to Denver and back all the time so they can figure out ways to keep from lowering rates, and it has to be you and me.
More? State lawmakers have finally agreed to ban food containing trans fats from being stuffed in the pie holes of unsuspecting kids in public schools. Well, most of the time. But the reason most state senators approved the bill is because they think they’re fighting against childhood obesity. It has nothing, really, to do with that. It has everything to do with clogging the arteries of Americans with oil I wouldn’t grease a car with. So trans-fats are out, doughnuts sans the trans fats are in.
I’m gonna throw up before I even get to the next story, let alone martian soil. Let me off.
Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry@aurorasentinel.com