The Price of Freedom, Episode 2.
By Bentley
"Goooooooood morning, Freedom and Atlantis!" The weak disc jockey impression ended and the wake up song replaced it. The wake up song was a shuttle tradition: meant to give a few minutes to the crew to shake off the morning grogginess they all felt. For most, it was because they had just woken up, but for a few, it was because they were never able to sleep. Today was "Space Oddity", a weak pun on the Anglicization of Foma Filatov's name.
"This is Ground Control to Major Tom," David Bowie's smooth voice sang as the astronauts slipped back into utilitarian consciousness. "Planet Earth is blue/And there's nothing I can do."
After an appropriate musical interlude, Capcom's voice pulled them firmly into the minute-by-minute existence men must live in them when their two-week's vacation costs more than they will make in their life.
"Big day today, Gentleman. And woman. We attach the Wallace Lab to Freedom. Finally, we'll have a space station that isn't just an outpost for three people at a time but is truly able to run as many experiments as we want.
"Colonel Warfield, well, you're doing a damn fine job commanding the shuttle, so we're going to keep you there. You'll be observing the construction of the space station, as well as the experiments on the space shuttle, and generally making sure your craft remains flight worthy. Message from your wife: she loves you.
"Major Daithwaite, you're actually going to be on Freedom today, observing the activities and helping the team to bring the new capsule up," Capcom's voice continued, preemptively overruling the objection Chris was scrambling to make when he heard his name. "We know you're the pilot of Atlantis, but Major Tom, err, Major Foma, I mean, Major Filatov is required by the Russian Air Force to do some flying every six months to keep his pilot's license. You already performed an excellent take-off and docking, yesterday you performed the main burn of the mission to lift the space station, and there's still deorbit left, so today, let Filatov pilot the shuttle one time around the station to get the module where it needs to be. In typical test pilot fashion, I have messages from about six girls, all of whome love you"
"Major Filatov, as we discussed, you'll be piloting the shuttle. Since you've already been in space for four months, no one seems to have anything new to say.
"Cosmonaut Lukin, you'll be on Atlantis observing, too. Try to make sure Filatov doesn't crash into anything.
"Captain Stanley, well, here's your chance to have the Space Station you keep bugging us for. You'll open up the module and start powering it up after the spacewalk happens. Your wife left a message for you: the judge accepted your faxed signature on the forms since you're not going to able to make it to court anytime soon. I'm sorry, that should have read, your 'ex'-wife left a message for you.
"Dr. Livingstone. Quite the day for you, Martha. You have greetings from your congressmen, your governor, your principal, just about everyone. Oh, the National Education Association, for being the first teacher-in-space to, well," the waking space behemoth was silent for a moment in silent remembrance of Christa McAuliffe's supreme sacrifice as the first teacher-in-space on Challenger. "For being the first teacher in space.
"Dr. Ford, you're of course one of the spacewalkers who's going to be making everybody else wait for him today. Oh, and the National Society of Black Engineers congratulates you. They say, 'Trevor Ford is exactly the type of role model young people need.'
"Dr. Gatsfield, you have no greetings from the National Society of Black Engineers, presumable because you're not Black.
"Dr. Ross, you have no greetings from the National Society of Black Engineers, presumably because you're not an engineer. Apparently Applied Physics just doesn't make the cut. Yes, even from MIT. Oh, and don't forget that you'll be the other astronaut on the spacewalk pulling the Wallace Lab into place.
"Mr. Wagner, your stockbroker called. He said all your shares fell, but since you sold most of them to finance this trip, your loss in the stock market was less than it would have been otherwise. So, always look on the bright side of life. Speaking of which..."
Sometimes the ground controllers played a second wake up song, on days they thought the crew needed extra time to prepare themselves. Today, apparently, Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" was appropriate. At least, it would make the world's most recent space tourist forget the loss of much of what he had worked his life for. Or at least, what his father and other male ancestors had worked most of their lives for.

"For life is quite absurd,
An' death's the final word,
You must always face the curtain with a bow,
Forget about your sin,
Give the audience a grin,
Enjoy it, it's you' last chance of the hour.
So, always look on the bright side of death,
Just before you draw your terminal breath."

To Be Continued...

The blog-ubiquitous links:

Article in the Stanford Daily (the *most* professional newspaper on campus):
Toledo Draws Mild Response

Followed today by the editorial:
Toledo a Suitable Choice (not yet online)

(Link now fixed for people who can't read my mind. Note: the humor here isn't the article, but the headline. Toledo? Toledo?! Toledo.)

Bentley, I offer this in friendship:

Cry on the outside and laugh on the inside.
Cut a stitch in time, pick up a penny on tails.
Procrastinate.
Masturbate.
Imitate.
Grab the bull by his balls and then run away.
Examine a gift horse's molars.
Wear white after labor day.
Ignore every bit of practical advice ever given to you by Benjamin Franklin.
Don't allow yourself the luxury of pondering all of Oscar Wilde's bittersweet musings.
Recognize altruisms as all-falsisms.
Disregard any list compiled by an ametaur that attempts to undo 5000 years of common sense.
Find your own fucking ethos.
Piss into the wind.
Eat with the wrong fork.
Eat with your hands.
Eat your hand.
Shoot your Ch'I all over her tits.
Publish a manifesto.
Don't listen to Emo.
Kiss the bad guy, save the night and kill the girl.
Ride on in from the sunrise.

The only way to become more interesting is to become more interest-ED.

--Fosteyricon.

There is a time that needn't come in every man's life, but has in mine: the dawning realization that I am a bad person. In earlier years, potential shadowed reality. Later, tightly-held naivete blinded me to signs until fate threw enough undeniable sings that I could no longer ignore. Unlike most essays, I share this not because it is generally applicable but because it is so personal. You'll never have to experience this. You are a decent person. Today wasn't my best of days.
In vino veritas. Latin fails me (and I it), but the gist is "drunk ex-girlfriends are never a good thing." You wake up the next morning either with another body in your bed or not having slept because she managed to salt the wounds you never knew you had, even through your supposedly-healed armor. In my case, it was both. Like I said, weird day.
I am competent, but not incredible, in my ambitions and a failure in all else. My faults are too numerous to summarize and too shameful to specify. I am unworthy of my position, and must either improve myself, which is impossible, or remove myself from it, which is unthinkable.
So, if you're reading this, you're probably an acquaintance of mine or a friend of an acquaintance. If you're the former, please forgive me; if you're the latter, please apologize profusely on my behalf to our mutual acquaintance. I'm sure you all understand that I'm going to retreat to my metaphorical cave, and as soon as I get the proper building permits, my physical one.
-Bentley

Ode.e.
Dan Foster

i sing of Falo bad at trig
Whose bloodless heart rejoiced in war:
A condescending subject-or

his wellbeloved proffesor (prig
Wesleyaner most distinctly read)
took erring falo soon in class;
but--through a host of overworked
TAs (first knocking out the head
of him) do through oily waters toll
that otherness which Arabs stroke
with Afghan rugs recently employed
anent this ruddy terroristhole,
While kindred Leftists provoke
allegience per glittering generalities--
Falo (being all too content
a corpse and wanting any rag
Upon what Zinn unto him gave)
Responds, without getting the ploy
"I will now burn your fucking flag"

Straightaway the tenured terd digressed
(Heading hurriedly towards the K Street protest)

But, though all kinds of professors
(A bored generation's redeyed pride)
their passive resistances were often terse
until for wear their Claritin
voices and berkenstocks were much the worse,
and egged the firstsemesterfrosh on
His rectum liberally with grease
by means of skillfully applied
epithets shouted from the street--
Falo (upon what were callused knees)
does most seriously repeat
"there is no shit I would not eat"

our residents,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the pinkojohnill'ych
a great big party, where he died

Chomsky (of His commercy infantile)
i pay to see;and Falo,too

preposterously because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.

"Romantics are Quantum cynics."
--Another Sage Fosterism

Any romantic's admitted greatest fear is that their soulmate lives in China, Sri Lanka, Los Angeles, or some other exotic land and can never be known. But though fate can work in mysterious ways, it is not cruel and would never give with one hand only to taketh away with the other. This self-delusion is only to steal attention from the more rational and scarier fear: that their soulmate lives around the corner but still remains unknown.
This second fear is unbearable; the blame for loneliness lies squarely on the lonely. Your soulmate is everywhere and everyone. He is the man whose parking spot you stole. She is the DMV agent who won't cut you any slack. He is the father of the bully that beat up your only son. Because every person could be the one, you always have to be at your best. The stranger kind enough to hold your hair back as you puke could be your future wife. How could you live life like this, as a romantic? This is why I believe there doesn't exist a single woman in the world right for me. It makes my lonely life easier to justify.

"And that's why flames in space are spherical, or round." Martha Livingstone, Ph.D. explained as Captain James Stanley, USN blew out the flame. Maj. Chris Dathwaite, USAF tried to hold the camera steady in the three-dimensional freedom of weightlessness.
"Thank you, Freedom, for that excellent presentation on how life is up there," came the voice of a NASA television personality. "Now, Captain, you just got a few new visitors, right?"
James, who just seconds ago had been unwittingly competing for what oxygen we humans had been able to carry higher than it rightfully should have been, responded, "Exactly. Since Atlantis docked 2 days ago, the shuttle astronauts have been--"
"Like Martha?"
"Yes, Houston, shuttle astronauts, like Martha, or Chris behind the camera, or Jake floating off-screen to my right, have been extremely helpful in constructing our space station and conducting our experiments."
"It must have been humorous when your co-host came to shake your hand. When she arrived, you said, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume'," the perpetual cheer over-inflected her question. She was, undoubtedly, one of those employees of the space consortium without an uttered promise for even a chance of a spaceshot; for her, NASA was not a path to the stars but a road to a paycheck. So she over-inflected in an attempt to hold the interest of the schoolchildren, present and future, who would sit through this thinly-veiled attempt at education.
"You needn't make unnecessary presumptions," James said tonelessly, "You can just ask if you want to know the answer."
"I mean, I meant," the voice was flustered at this refusal of banter, "did you actually say, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" when you met her?"
"No, why would I do that?"
"Well, cause you're Stanley, and she's Livingstone, and there was this case where, well, umm, Stanley rescued Livingstone, and that's what he said when they met."
"Well, space is not only a new frontier, but a different one. It seems like if I hold on to the cliches of old ones, I may be doing a disservice to both."
"Yes," the voice paused, no doubt trying to interpret frantic hand gestures from her producer, "well, thank you for being with us, Doctor and Captain. For Houston and Mission, I'm--"
"Besides," James interjected quickly enough that any perceived rudeness could be blamed on the several seconds the audio would take in its roundtrip between orbiter and orbited, "with all the supplies Atlantis just brought us, it seems in this case Livingstone is the rescuer."

"You didn't have to be so mean to her," Martha said as soon as the red light went out.
"I wasn't mean. I was explicating," Capt. Stanley said, "wasn't it supposed to be an educational show?"
"You two bicker like a married couple," Chris said, jumping in as he coiled the cord around the now-dormant camcorder.
"She was just trying to be amusing, and admittedly failing, like all DJ's and hosts do. It's just her job."
"Well, if her job description includes incompetence, I guess maybe I was a bit hard on her," Stanley said. He turned back the the rows and panels of buttons, switches and displays that commanded their home-above-our-home.
"I take it back," Chris said, "you argue more like a divorced couple."

As they spoke, they were gliding over the land beneath them, 5 miles every second. Tanks of oxygen and hydrogen stirred, cooled to scant degrees away from theoretical stasis, waiting to form water and generate electricity. Already-formed water waited to be converted by the sun's rays back into oxygen the astronauts could breath. Electrical signals pulsed from component to component over wire, fiber, and spacial ether to control the most imaginative beachhead humanity had realized. Chemicals with names unspellable were burning at a slow rate, waiting to be called upon to propel organisms of simple hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen where their vision will guide them and their ingenuity carry. Inches separated these men and women from the abhorrent vacuum surrounding their tenuous habitat that perpetually fell but, in a Newtonian twist, never landed. All in all, it was a normal day for the international space station Freedom and the space shuttle Atlantis. At least, if anything went wrong, they had each other, which is more than most people can say.