Indulge me please. There's a rocket headed for the moon and I've got some thoughts.
I'm a child of the space program. I was two when the first human blasted into space and circled the planet once before coming down. I can name the first American in space and the second. I was nearly 4 when John Glenn shot around the earth 3 times.
I cried when Gus Grissom, the 2nd American in space, died with Chafee and White. I remember Christmas when the first pictures of earth were broadcast from Apollo 8. And, of course, I watched with a worldwide audience when Neil Armstrong nailed the landing but blew the quote as the first person to step on the big ball of cheese.
Today, 57 years later, this country is still the only one to send humans to the moon and back. But we quit after three years. The last human walked on the moon 54 years ago.
Why are we trying to get people back there now for another flyby? Because the Chinese are about to get some footprints on the moon and we want to make sure we have fresh ones to lay claims with. All footprints will lead to the Moonglow Development Corporation Deed Registry, LLC, a subsidiary of Trump Enterprises, unless the Maoists get there first.
Whatever, indulge me. I do not want to be cynical. I want our crew, which looks more like a Star Trek episode than ever, to be successful and safe. I want pictures of the dark side of the moon like we've never seen.
But then I'm reminded of the time. You know. The time when our leader is a guy who says "like we've never seen" a lot. The only thing we're experiencing "like we've never seen" is the incompetence of an administration filled with pundits and sycophants uniquely unqualified for whatever position they've been handed.
They're great at breaking things. But those aren't the skills required to successfully complete a dangerous complex mission with no casualties.
The head of NASA is a billionaire payment processor who qualified for the job by buying a space walk from Elon Musk. Turns out payment processing is why we quit putting men on the moon.
Speaking of indulgences, J.D. Vance has once again blessed us with a book about his pretend life. First, J.D. (not his real name), pretended to be an Appalachian American with his novel "Hillbilly Elegy". Soon he'll release his second work of fiction packaged as a memoir called "Communion" in which he claims to be a Catholic American.
Despite papal skepticism, J.D. 's indulgence in the political ploy of publishing before pandering might perfectly reveal what truly draws him to Catholicism.
Indulgence. Jesus might forgive your sins, but all that sinning still leaves a mark and those marks must be healed in purgatory. But billionaires have no time for purgatory and ancient catholics knew how to take care of that.
As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs!
Peter Thiel's got plenty of coins for the coffer as long as J.D. keeps on preaching his indulgences. Indulge me in finding it divine that a pope from Chicago is going to be a hard sell.