“ALL ARE LOST”

IPM SATURDAY…This is really breaking news. The American space shuttle has broken up on reentry. Every news organization in the world is on alert, many on the air. In the first hours the coverage is pretty much the same, sifting through known facts, airing LIVE footage, talking to people on the ground who heard a sonic boom, or saw the debris. Interviewing experts, former astronauts, reporting from The Pentagon, the White House and Israel because of the presence of an Israeli astronaut. (How ironic that the shuttle would break up over a place called PALESTINE Texas (pronounced Pales-teen, not ine) Actually there is a possibility that debris reined down on the Presidential ranch near WACO Texas. Talking about disasters hitting close to home. So far most of the reporting is coming from official sources…That will change in the days ahead.

The sense of shock, sadness and national emergency is all enveloping. Only this one comes on the eve of the latest maneuvering in the end game towards war. What will the implications be? Hard to know. Some speculate it may delay Secretary of State Powell’s presentation next week at the UN, where he is expected to play intelligence intercepts to “prove” what has, up until now, only been alleged. There will be days of national mourning. For the first time in weeks, the crisis in Iraq will not lead the news. What this shows certainly is that even super high-tech systems are vulnerable, that our power has limits, that unexpected events lurk around many unseen corners, and that things don’t always go according to plan. One can sense already that there will be groups claiming responsibility or suggestions that higher forces have brought down the might and power of the US. NASA is calling it a “mishap” and a “tragedy.” Remember the allegory of Sisyphus.

We will mourn as we should. Respect the bravery and courage of those in flight. Feel for the families. But the political implications and the psychological implications are yet to fully reveal themselves. Journalists are working overtime to explain and report. We may need some philosophers and deeper seers to understand the larger meaning.

2:O7 PM: President Bush has just spoken. He was visibly moved, and even moving until he took refuge in religious aphorisms for he is becoming well known. He quoted the Prophet Isaiah, perhaps because the Israeli Ilan Roman died on the shuttle. I flashed to the far more famous quote on the UN wall from the prophet calling on the leaders of the world to turn their swords into ploughshares. That was not a passage he referenced. I googled Isaiah. Most of the citations were to Islamic sites, but I found one Israeli site. It read in part:

” Isaiah was considered the most “political” of the prophets. Even though he was a member of the aristocracy, Isaiah spoke against the selfish greed of the rich, and the corruption of the judges and leaders of his time…Nevertheless, Isaiah had faith in the future of the people because he had faith in God’s purpose. He followed his angry words of criticism with a vision of hope, maintaining that, in spite of how bad things were at that time, there would eventually be justice, peace, and harmony in the world.”

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