(no subject)
Feb. 10th, 2005 12:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamadebPakua ended not well. We were doing sidefalls and Riki landed on her shoulder. She was in considerable pain, although there was nothing visibly dislocated and she could move her arm and her hand. I offered to drive her home in her car, but she insisted on driving herself if I would bring it around because she couldn't stand the idea of changing out of her uniform, or even putting her skirt on over it. Which is what I did - put a skirt over my uniform (pants legs sticking out) and my sneakers on, and then driving her car around.
After she dropped me off, she went to see her cousin, who is an EMT and who lives close to me.
The masters all responded quickly and appropriately and advised her to get an x-ray. This is a physical activity, a sport. Accidents happen, injuries happen. The thing to look for is the response, and the response was excellent.
Later on, after my shower, I turned on the end of a rerun of The West Wing, The Crackpots and these Women, which, among other things, has a gentle lunatic coming in to talk about a UFO to Sam. The UFO is, in fact, completely Identified - it's a Russian satellite falling back to earth, a reminder whem "Two great nations dared to try to reach the starts."
And then he says, "What will be the next thing that challenges us, Toby? That makes us go farther and work harder? Do you know that when smallpox was eradicated it was considered the single greatest humanitarian achievement of the twentieth century? Surely we can do it again, as we did in a time when our eyes looked toward the heavens, and with outstretched fingers, we touched the face of God."
And I broke down in big, sobbing, tears. Because there was a time when we reached for the stars, and there
was a time when we reached towards the heavens, and we aren't anymore. We're stuck on this ball of dirt - beautiful and precious and we are harming it everyday - and we can't go anywhere beyond Earth orbit, and there isn't a colony on the Moon now, or a manned flight to Mars in the works and, my goodness, it hurts.
We made it up with computers less powerful than pocket calculators. What could we do now?
After she dropped me off, she went to see her cousin, who is an EMT and who lives close to me.
The masters all responded quickly and appropriately and advised her to get an x-ray. This is a physical activity, a sport. Accidents happen, injuries happen. The thing to look for is the response, and the response was excellent.
Later on, after my shower, I turned on the end of a rerun of The West Wing, The Crackpots and these Women, which, among other things, has a gentle lunatic coming in to talk about a UFO to Sam. The UFO is, in fact, completely Identified - it's a Russian satellite falling back to earth, a reminder whem "Two great nations dared to try to reach the starts."
And then he says, "What will be the next thing that challenges us, Toby? That makes us go farther and work harder? Do you know that when smallpox was eradicated it was considered the single greatest humanitarian achievement of the twentieth century? Surely we can do it again, as we did in a time when our eyes looked toward the heavens, and with outstretched fingers, we touched the face of God."
And I broke down in big, sobbing, tears. Because there was a time when we reached for the stars, and there
was a time when we reached towards the heavens, and we aren't anymore. We're stuck on this ball of dirt - beautiful and precious and we are harming it everyday - and we can't go anywhere beyond Earth orbit, and there isn't a colony on the Moon now, or a manned flight to Mars in the works and, my goodness, it hurts.
We made it up with computers less powerful than pocket calculators. What could we do now?
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-10 06:05 pm (UTC)You're going to make me cry too if you're not careful because you're right, plain and simple.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-10 06:39 pm (UTC)I count on it. We're crazy, curious monkeys who will take any path. We end up on the wrong one sometimes, but we get back on track.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-10 06:47 pm (UTC)was a time when we reached towards the heavens, and we aren't anymore.
We are so deeply mundane and utterly flat in our thinking nowadays that it is not even funny. We could do so much, but that takes will, and leadership, and the daring to dream big.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-10 06:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 05:30 am (UTC)I know.
{{Mama}}
That's possibly my favourite WW episode. That or the state dinner one where Abbey holds Jed's hand while he verbally holds the hand of a young serviceman trapped on a submarine in the path of a hurricane.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 02:58 pm (UTC)*cries with you*