Last Thursday, scientists confirmed the existence of gravitational waves. They have heard the collision of two black holes. The black holes went “chirp.”
It seems that when we can listen in to the gravitational sounds, the universe is always going to sound like the song of evening crickets pulling out all the stops in the fields beyond the barn. I’m sure the recordings will be very popular, although they probably won’t ever outsell the singing humpback whale hits.
In the ’50s, going into outer space meant taking your pipe along, remembering to bring overshoes just in case, doing the New York Times crossword puzzle along the way and expecting some Theremin music and an occasional green alien. Then we started actually shooting stuff and people up there, and we all absorbed the idea that space was very, very quiet and consists of nothing but space and rocks and rock dust and places you can’t go.
Now its come to this. Space is full of chirping. It’s not completely quiet. There are no Theremins, no Wagner, no Philip Glass. Just chirping. We could have just stayed on the farm and got the same show.
Speaking of Space, what are we going to do with all of it?
Looking at what we’ve done so far with spaces on the Earth, I see mainly strip malls and box stores. There are taco joints, burger joints, cafes, nail shops, thrift stores and convenience stores.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like tacos as much as the next guy. But the universe is a big lot of empty boring space already, and then look what we do with it. We fill it up with the same things over and over again in order to just make it into a new kind of boring.
Yesterday I was on the bus and a man sitting two seats away started into a conversation at me. He was about three minutes into his babble when he asked me what I thought of the Super Bowl. I said I hadn’t thought of it. He said, “Oh, I get it. I know what you are. You’re that kind that doesn’t watch the games. You go to the library and read books.”
His drivel reminded me of one of the reasons homeless people don’t get the housing they need. After all, the man was probably homeless, and why would anyone do such an annoying twit a favor and get him a place of his own?
But I hope you can see how that kind of thinking is short-sighted. If only he had a room of his own and a refrigerator and stove and access to tortillas, ground beef, cheese, lettuce and cilantro, chopped onions, salsa, sour cream and guacamole and a TV. He could have been there right then watching the sports channel and making his own tacos, instead of being on that bus bothering me. Let’s all chip in and arrange for that.
This would, as they say, kill the two birds with one stone, because the more people we can get making their own tacos, the fewer taco shops we will need, freeing up valuable space for the more important things such as dog parks and pot dispensaries.
It amazes me that so many people are bothered by homeless people camping in The Jungle along I-5 and I-90, places where no one else goes. The homeless people might as well be settled on Mars for all it should matter to the rest of us.
But OK, if it bothers them, it bothers them. I guess we have to live with that. Their annoyance is my annoyance. Fine, then. What’s the answer? If a person bothers us for whatever reason, isn’t the obvious solution to get him or her a home and lots of inducements to stay in it?
Don’t do it to be humane, do it because it works.
It’s cheaper than shooting people into space. Trust me on that. I’ve done the math.