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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?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

gisterme - 10:20pm Jul 24, 2003 EST (# 13129 of 13267)

wrcooper....

"Do I suppose Bob's a masochist?..."

Thanks for the extra detail about your meeting with Bob and your assessment. What you say is almost exacty what I've imagined about him. I think I'd like the guy if I happened to sit next to him at the pub. I certainly wouldn't expect smoke from his ears. He does seem to have some excellent talents. I think he's just frustrated because he has a natural and strong sense that he's here in this life for a purpose and he just can't quite figure out what it is...sort of a frustrated sense of destiny. I can sympathize, empathize and even directly identify with that. I have no doubt that the man has a very engaging, perhaps even charismatic personality. After all, even though he hasn't posted anything yet today, we're talking about him.

Now, I can only speak for myself on this, but when I step back and try to assess my own life at age 53, I find that realizing many of the dreams and aspiriations that motivated...yes, even drove me as a much younger man are not the gratifying, rewarding "ends in themselves", not the "shining cities" that I had imagined. They are only "shining cities" compared to where I was when I started. They were more like distant, beautiful, beckoning beacons on a horizon I couldn't see beyond. After years of seemingly endless walking, rowing and pedaling toward the objective, once reached, low and behold, there's yet another even more beautiful light away off in the distance.

On the one hand I could be bitterly disappointed to find upon arrival that the place I've worked so hard to reach only gives a vantage point to another more distant place I'd like to be even more. On the other hand, I could rejoice that only by reaching the first place can I find that the even better place exists.

The cost of my oddysey so far has been expenditure of most of the energy of youth. That is irreplaceable. I could look back and lament, considering all that a waste because I'm not yet where I want to be, I could look back at all the toil only to despair because of the apparant distance to the that place I am not. But wait! Taking a look around this place I have managed to reach I realize that from here I won't have to walk or row or pedal. From here I can fly!

That realization, for me, amounts to true epiphany. It's a point that I think we all reach if we make it this far in life. The more mundane term that we apply is "mid-life crisis". It's a point from which we either sink or swim.

Maybe Robert is at that point himself.

gisterme - 10:24pm Jul 24, 2003 EST (# 13130 of 13267)

By the way, WR,

Thanks for correcting my typo on "masochist". When I looked at that later and saw "maochist" I wondered what that could possibly be. At first I thought it might be a person who can't get too much mayonnaise...but that would be "mayochist" wouldn't it?

Incidentally, I don't really think Bob is a masochist either.

gisterme - 11:06pm Jul 24, 2003 EST (# 13131 of 13267)

jorian...

"...If I wasn't so busy being President, I'd take the time to thank each poster personally..."

Don't confuse me, jorian...I thought Lou was President! Maybe the right question to ask is "President of what?". :-)

fredmoore - 08:04am Jul 25, 2003 EST (# 13132 of 13267)

Watch out for missiles .... get back on deck! (That means you Gisterme)

INCOMING!

gisterme - 09:26am Jul 25, 2003 EST (# 13133 of 13267)

"...INCOMING"

Okay, Fred. I'll duck and cover. :-) Amazing as it sounds today, when I was a kid in primary (public) school, the fear of nuclear attack was so intense that we actually had "duck and cover" drills. Somewhat like a fire drill, except that on cue, instead of filing out of the building in an orderly fashion, every kid in the school would dive onto the floor, duck under their desk and cover their heads with their arms. Even back then I wondered what good that would do in close proximity to a nuclear blast.

Can you imagine kids being asked to do something like that today?

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