Boing Boing observed that on Tuesday 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men on the moon.
In the comments, this anonymous lament:
On this date last year, I was in a check out lane at a drugstore, filling out a check when the friendly teenage clerk volunteered the date.
I replied “Thanks, but I know this one. Big Day in History.”
The nervous look I got in return made me pause. I asked her if she knew what had occurred, and she stammered “No Idea”. I asked her if she’d ever heard of “One Small Step For Man, One Giant Leap For Mankind”?
“No.”
How about “The Eagle Has Landed”?
“No.”
“Neil Armstrong”?
“Who?”
I told her that on this date, forty years ago, man first set foot on the moon. She stared at me for a few seconds and then burst out “Get OUTTA Here! We ain’t been to no MOON. You CRAZY!”
Randall Munroe’s cartoon uses the moon landing as an example, and unfortunately the actual comments are just as bad.
People these days. They just want to be Right, even if they’re not even wrong.
Literalist consumeroid cattle, trampling god, history, family, even reality into the ground as they race to their slaughterhouse Paradise.
The first men landed on the moon in Mare Tranquilitatus, on 20 July 1969, and that’s historical fact. Not conspiracy.
Sometimes I think there’s a conspiracy to keep people earthbound in both mind and body.
That, or people really are that small-minded and desperate for some, any, authority.
(Originally posted 21 July 2010)