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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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lunarchick - 06:52pm Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7537 of 7541)

When perfection is attained - Don't alter

This seems to be the message given out wrt the works of :

ACCLAIMED Sydney theatre director Neil Armfield has lashed out at Edward Beckett, literary executor of his uncle Samuel Beckett's estate, calling him an "enemy of art" for his threat to shut down Armfield's production of Waiting for Godot.

"We have done our best . . . with respect and love for this great, difficult and unruly classic," Armfield said. "In coming here with its narrow prescription, its dead controlling hand, its list of 'not alloweds', the Beckett estate seems to me to be the enemy of art."

^{The Beckett estate is renowned for its strict, contract-enforced policing of the playwright's staging directions. (The Australian)}

Raises the question - if 'perfection' was reached in the first performance of this work ... of whips and spit ... why isn't it just 'bottled/canned' into a dvd museum piece?

Why not put real humans, capital and effort into 'new' plays - that have relevance to the NOW and TOMORROW! Where's the play on ending the cold war and bringing all the nuclear muck down?

Where's the play about a vision of a fairer world that's not dog-eat-dog with people hunting through garbage to stay alive?

What happened to Vision?

Why do audiences live artistically-musically-ballet-wise in the 19th Century? Did all the ends tie together then Showalter .. did the works that stood the test of time have a sense of completeness ... did story and mind converge and feel - RIGHT?

So why is 'today' so hard to adjust to --- have we all to travel through and on .... and then look back --- to appreciate perfection?

~~~~~~~

Johnstone - did you get those planes to land in fog yet without crashing?

If auto-navigation isn't yet perfected and in place that's still something to keep working at.

rshow55 - 08:12pm Jan 9, 2003 EST (# 7538 of 7541)
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.

The developments between the US and NK are very hopeful - but look at the situation. Look how awkward things have become. We need some better sorts. It matters. When I saw this, I not only had to cry. I could. Though I'm still very afraid, and hope others have sense enough to be afraid (not too afraid) and careful and slow (but not too much) as they work out this mess to a point clean enough so that human beings can decently live with it. On all sides. With real requirements of the people involved fully met, so that stability is at least possible.

U.S. to Allow North Korea Envoy to Meet Former U.N. Ambassador By BRIAN KNOWLTON, International Herald Tribune http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/09/international/09CND_KORE.html

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 — In a move that might help break a diplomatic stand-off with North Korea, Pyongyang's United Nation envoy flew to New Mexico today for a meeting with Bill Richardson, a former United Nations ambassador.

I've been pushing - and a part of my brain that I've had busy - and that hasn't permitted me to sleep in the last 3 days - got sorted out so that I could. I slept some. rshow55 1/9/03 11:28am - - the advice on nutrition was helpful. Sugar matters. I think carbohydrates do, too.

I had a really "good" atrocity set up, but when I stepped back and looked at it - it couldn't compete with the much more advanced and hopeful -effort-atrocity that the US and N. Korea have been driven to - a desperate connection convoluted enough in some ways, but honest enough in others - that it might work. The complications and difficultes are worth a careful and concerned look, I believe:

U.S. to Allow North Korea Envoy to Meet Former U.N. Ambassador By BRIAN KNOWLTON, International Herald Tribune http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/09/international/09CND_KORE.html

The following toast occurs to me:

Here's to it
From it
And to it again.

If you don't do it
When you get to it, to do it
You never get to it
To do it again.

But there can be second chances, in some ways. They are rare and expensive in many ways. We shouldn't mess up, this time. And when we need to do enough thinking, and spend enough resources to REALLY solve a problem - if it is important enough - we should ACTUALLY DO IT.

I'm resting. Feeling much more relaxed. Back in the morning. rshow55 1/9/03 11:28am

I have some simple symmetries, ready to box, it seems to me. I'll look at them again in the morning. I feel much more relaxed, and safer. I deeply appreciate the chance to post on this board - and deeply appreciate lunarchick .

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