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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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rshow55 - 09:06pm Jun 14, 2003 EST (# 12535 of 12537)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

I got my nose broken a few times as a kid - and the separation between my nostrils is off center - not something that someone my height notices. Shorter people probably do. Maybe I should fix it, and maybe I will. But I'd done a lot of work in early childhood education - and I didn't scare children. I was wearing a blue sportcoat, gray slacks, and a turtle neck. I don't think I looked bad, or sloppy, or especially threatening. I was hoping to make a good impression - and be only slightly stodgy (at that time, I thought people who worked for the Gray Lady might be most comfortable with slightly stodgy.)

I went into that wonderful museum, so full of imposing beauty - and saw her from a distance soon enough. She was with another woman. I hadn't expected that. I was also surprised - very surprised by how Natalie Angier looked, and how Gina Kolata looked. It would, I think, have made a stunning scene for a movie. I was totally taken aback.

We were in a side gallery off one of the main halls - and those galleries can be cozy. This wasn't cozy, and wasn't anything I'd prepared for.

Natalie Angier looked charming, but hunted. She was so much more beautiful than I'd expected from the videotape that I was stunned. As she was then and there, dressed in a pants suit she was a drop-dead beautiful woman. So beautiful that my mind went blank for a second - partly from aesthetic admiration, but partly from fear. Any woman that bright, that accomplished, who was small, flirtatous in literary style and also that beautiful had been fending off aggressive men since puberty. And many women. In my experience women anything like that beautiful carried scars - I couldn't imagine what life would be like for a woman that beautiful, that agressive - at a fast track like the Times. Casey and I talked about the stresses beautiful women face. James Bond would have known them. And this woman wasn't just bright - she was Natalie Angier - an extraordinarily impressive artist-intellectual writer - even by NYT standards. Naturally I had the hots for her - a response I felt sure I shared, at one level or another, with many if not most other men she had dealt with for the last 25 years. Also, she was obviously uneasy - to my eye physically afraid. It wasn't so hard to see why.

Gina Kolata looked uncomfortable in another way. Kolata was not dressed beautifully - and had made no effort to appear feminine at that meeting. Quite the contrary. She wore her hair in a bun, with hair flying - she wore drab clothes - she was working to look older than she was - and she was standing closely, protectively, disapprovingly around Natalie. Remembering Ms. Kolata's expression, I'm reminded of Menken's descriptions of William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes trial. When Ms. Kolata looked at me, it was like coming under fire (and some of her glances were aimed Natalie's way, as well.) When I approached the pair of them, Ms. Kolata may have been afraid or challenged in some way - but the way she looked at me reminded me of Menken's phrase - malicious animal magnetism radiated off her like heat from a stove.

I was taken aback. This was no comfortable courtship situation. I had no idea how to enter into conversation - especially the conversation I was hoping for. Yet there Natale Angier was, and there Gina Kolata (who lives in Princeton, some drive away) was. The odds were such that they were obviously here to meet me. But the vibes were awkward.

I made a decision. I'd try to feel my way along. I stood reasonably close to them - not impolitely close, I didn't think, and finally - after an awkward few seconds - got Natalie Angier to make fleeting eye contact with me. Not knowing what else to do, disoriented as I was - I asked Natalie Angier, in a way that I thought was gentle, polite, and not too awkwa

rshow55 - 09:08pm Jun 14, 2003 EST (# 12536 of 12537)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Not knowing what else to do, disoriented as I was - I asked Natalie Angier, in a way that I thought was gentle, polite, and not too awkward, if she was Natale Angier. She said no.

I asked if she knew Natalie Angier. She said she didn't know her, had never heard of her.

I didn't know what to say. I think it was awkward for Natalie, as well.

- - -

The National Museum is a big place - but we hovered around within view of each other for a few minutes - and for some of that time, Natalie was making friendly expressions to me, from a distance, and even showing off her very attractive calf muscles. Kolata was always between us, and when she looked at me, glowering. I couldn't figure out how to approach Ms. Angier in a way that I felt could sustain conversation.

I left the museum for a few minutes - walking fast in the fresh morning air - trying to figure out what to say - hoping for some graceful approach - and when I returned - I could not find Natalie Angier and Gina Kolata.

That's how it happened.

- -

Would James Bond have done very much better? Doubtless he would have been quicker and more graceful - but Bond would not, I'd guess, be given to imposing himself on reluctant women until he at least had something witty to say. By the time I could figure out something to say - they were gone.

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