Buzz Aldrin just took away my safe haven

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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So the U.S. political stuff already takes up much of the news space up here in Québec. We also get mostly bad news from local politics, and also from Canadian federal politics, which is rapidly turning into the U.S. with a 20-year delay. And politicians blaming immigrants for everything, though not in the same way as in the U.S. And a diplomatic crisis with India, as if China weren’t enough. And bad news from Ukraine, which is probably mostly trustable, and bad news from Gaza, which may or may not be true at all, and the BRICS summit, and Taiwan, and… Oh, also, Elon Musk has become a supervillain.

Oh, also, some projects and support issues are not going well at the office.

I discovered Reddit about 2 years ago, I got the feeling it gave me more control over the social media I consume than, say, Facebook. I’ve never been interested in Twitter, and now of course I avoid it like the plague. While being sad that it didn’t collapse a year ago like we all thought it would. But somehow the Reddit boards I chose to watch are increasingly becoming about bad people, or at least about combating bad people. Even ordinary channels are now about combating lies and misinformation.

So I watch shows on Apple+ and Amazon Prime, and even then I increasingly have to choose unrealistic fun fiction. I gave up on Fallout for now because I don’t see it ever becoming uplifting, and I need uplift right now.

I consume books too, I’m listening to Ken Follett’s The Fall of Giants on Audible, the WWI politics and intrigue are sufficiently removed from today that I don’t mind too much. I’ve read pretty much all of the Becky Chambers books, it was fun while it lasted.

A few weeks ago I purchased The development of the Space Shuttle by Heppenheimer and find it interesting. I already know much of the basics, what the book will cover and pretty much how it will end (it was published in 2001). History of the space race and of NASA / aerospace accomplishments always makes me less sad. Safe haven.

So that’s how I’ve been surviving the horror around me.

And then Buzz Aldrin endorsed Trump.

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Ironically, may of the MAGA crowd think the Earth is flat and the moon landing was a hoax.

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Even more ironically, Aldrin famously punched a moon landing denier who was all up in his face. Not that I approve of violence, but Aldrin had been one of my anti-CT heroes. No more :cry:

I guess I can maybe give him a bit of a pass since he’s 94 and probably not too up on things these days, but still, this is sucky news.

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Trump is the only one promising all of the space adventures Buzz has been advocating for over the last half century. The slim likelihood Trump will keep any of his promises keeps his dreams alive a little longer. Buzz is the very definition of a one issue voter.

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I read one of his newer autobiographies (Magnificent Desolation, IIRC) and he’s got questionable judgement in his personal life, too. He falls for all the wrong women over and over in obvious ways that if you were his kid, you’d have an intervention.

The book had him gushing over his third wife and how she was The ONE and everything would be great. By the time I read the book, he was on his forth wife. So much for soul mates, I guess.*

Wikipedia has this to say about his faculties:

n 2018, Aldrin was involved in a legal dispute with his children Andrew and Janice and former business manager Christina Korp over their claims that he was mentally impaired through dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. His children alleged that he made new friends who were alienating him from the family and encouraging him to spend his savings at a high rate.

If the kids are telling the truth, and not just running their own operation to gain control of his money (always a possibility) that could explain the trump endorsement.

*Having multiple wives isn’t a failing in and of itself, but the way he talks about his own marriages is.

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In an interview, he mentioned dating women. He would take them outside, point to the moon, and say, “You see that? I’ve been there.”

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Well, there’s a pick up line if I’ve ever heard one. Oh, wait? You’re Buzz who? That said, who can guess political affiliations. I know I’ve been surprised at times.

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It makes me sad, too; I’d long admired Buzz. Apparently, he’s been a longtime GOP supporter, and was Trump’s guest at the 2019 State of the Union address.

This is, I believe, a picture of him and wife #4, Anca Faur, on their wedding day last year. She’s 63.

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Right, he was active in Republican campaigning and fund raising for years and was already very supportive of Trump early in the first term based on the Space Policy Directives, that led to such things as Artemis (with the Moon-to-Mars goal) and the Space Force.

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I miss Senator John Glenn.

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That was disappointing, indeed. It couldn’t help but make me wonder how Neil Armstrong would have voted. Not that I wonder who Armstrong would have endorsed, because he seemed like far too private a man to want to needlessly inject himself into the public discourse like that.

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I believe (evidence based on reading their books) that a depressingly large number of “old school” astros are trump-types. It’s that 50s military mindset.

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Yeah; it’s likely that most of them were lifelong Republicans. Though, that said, there are darned few old-school (e.g., Mercury-Gemini-Apollo era) astronauts left at this point; all of the surviving ones are in their late 80s or 90s now.

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Old school Astronauts were the poster children for the military industrial complex. Essentially lobbyists for the defense industry that comprised 90% of NASA’s contractors. No surprise that they would support the party of increased defense spending.

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I hate single-issue voters, no matter the issue.

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Presumably one that doesn’t care about adultery as a sin.

Even more than single-issue voters, I hate hypocrites.