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Tuesday, February 4, 2003
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Phil Ochs' song
Crucifixion has been in my head the last three days. It's not wholly appropriate to the death of the seven astronauts on the Columbia, but it's a passionate song and the pack mentality of modern media reduces every tragedy to the same formulas, whether it's an assassination or an accident.
They say they can't believe it, it's a sacrilegious shame
Now, who would want to hurt such a hero of the game?
But you know I predicted it; I knew he had to fall
How did it happen? I hope his suffering was small.
Tell me every detail, I've got to know it all,
And do you have a picture of the pain?
I am far more affected, and angered, by the media coverage than by the actual event. The old cliche of "heroes" is in every newspaper and magazine, on all the radio and TV stations that, on Friday, could barely be bothered to acknowledge that the shuttle was up in the air.
In the blogging world, an almost immediate twisting of the coverage to the really important issues, such as whether a question about American "arrogance" from a Canadian reporter was one more bit of evidence of how the world hates us and therefore we should bomb Iraq. More squabbling, over a false dichotomy that opposes those who mourn the Columbia astronauts and those who are worried about the thousands who die because of unenforced safety rules, embargoes that starve a country's people while leaving their leaders safe, and so on. I salute, but do not mourn the Colombia astronauts: they died doing what they wanted to do, and there are thousands who would volunteer to take the same risks, for the same cause. Ad astra, per aspera: "through difficulty to the stars".
The child was created to the slaughterhouse he's led
So good to be alive when the eulogy is read
The climax of emotion, the worship of the dead
And the cycle of sacrifice unwinds.
The images, over and over, even as I hit the fast forward on the Tivo: a streak in the sky becoming two, three, death on the instant replay. The empty, charred helmet, lying on the ground. Little pseudo-altars for quasi-saints, votive lights burning in front of icons made of newpaper photos, at a Wisconsin high school that one of the astronauts attended, more than two decades ago.
And the night comes again to the circle studded sky
The stars settle slowly, in loneliness they lie
'Till the universe expodes as a falling star is raised
Planets are paralyzed, mountains are amazed
But they all glow brighter from the briliance of the blaze
With the speed of insanity, then he died.
