Remember the story of the astronaut pen, the one that could write in zero gravity and that came with an alleged hefty price tag. Well, that story seems to be nothing but a story. The astronaut, zero-G pen was developed privately and sold to NASA for about $2.39 each.* That’s not too bad for a pen. I think I’ve spent about that much for one that wouldn’t leak ink. But NASA did do extensive testing of the pen, and that cost isn’t part of the $2.39, making the true cost higher. Well, NASA is at it again, this time with a toilet that accommodates a female astronaut.
 
Titanium. Stuff of fighter jets. Price tag for the new toilet: $23 million.**
 
I think of a couple of local kitchen/bathroom companies that daily show up in commercials during the local news. Gosh! I wish NASA had contracted with those guys. I’m sure they could have supplied a toilet, even a zero-G toilet, for less, and that includes one-day installation with a two-year warranty.
 
I understand that going to the bathroom in space is a challenge. Wouldn’t want to do it myself. I also understand that the process is a bit more complicated for women than for men. The new toilet is supposed to solve that problem, bringing true equality to the sexes in a symbolic sign of the times, as well as a practical solution to a real problem.
 
But that toilet is a lesson about “equality.” Making people equal means accommodating. Otherwise, those-who-can-and-do inevitably outperform those who-cannot-or-do-not-do.
 
Now, lest you think I don’t want female astronauts to enjoy the comforts of home as they embark on dangerous flights in space, I’ll say that I’m happy that the ladies will be accommodated with a commode. They are “those-who-can-and-do” more than I; I’ve never been to outer space and I won’t be going even if Space X, Blue Origin, or Virgin Galactic reduce the cost of a seat on one of their spaceships. So, yes, I’m acknowledging that the women who go to space are “more equal” than I, probably more capable, and definitely less claustrophobic. I could, I suppose, enter a capsule for a space center tour, but that’s about it. Sitting in one for long periods, or floating around in the cylinders of the International Space Station for months just isn’t a job I would want. Anyway, enough about my shortcomings except to say that they indicate how I am not the equal of female astronauts.
 
We do live in a Time of Accommodation. And the milieu isn’t enhancing what we are as a species unless we judge ourselves by our compassion. That we accommodate is ethically and morally good in many respects, but not so good in some others. Making ramps for people in wheelchairs is an act of compassion; they deserve the accommodation. But we have taken accommodating to the extreme.
 
About 25 years ago, an educational system called Outcomes Based Education swept around the nation. As it was locally interpreted, teachers were supposed to retest entire classes if they failed to achieve an average of 70% on a test. That meant, of course, that students who scored 100% on a test had to retest. That’s accommodation in the extreme, and it is also a sign of an “equality-gone-wild” syndrome.
 
That some people obsess over the superior abilities and successes of others isn’t either new or mysterious. Envy pervades every generation. It’s one of those Seven Deadly Sins** that has driven people to seek accommodations as long as there have been people.
 
We also live in a Time of Handicapping. That is, in our attempt to “make all things equal,” we have gone to the extreme of limiting those with physical and mental “advantages.” Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” details such a society. In 2081, after the adoption of amendments to the American Constitution, a Handicapper General’s office that enforces laws requiring “equality” at the expense of an individual’s talents.****  Intelligent, athletic, and beautiful people must listen to distracting sounds, carry weights, and wear masks.
 
I’m for ramps. I’m for handicap stalls in public restrooms. I’m for a space toilet that accommodates women. I’m not for putting in extra steps for those who can walk. And I object to arbitrarily chosen qualifications on the grounds that those who impose qualifications are likely those who “cannot do” or cannot compete. I’m not for handicapping those who have superior abilities. I’m not for handicapping people with great accomplishments.
 
There’s a point to be made about the first Olympics. Regardless of the number of contestants, the ancient Greeks acknowledged only a winner. There was First Place. There was no Second Place. All who didn’t win were losers. Sounds cruel to the modern mind, of course, but, then, accommodating the feelings of all who didn’t win—or at least those who followed in second or third place—would probably befuddle those ancient Greeks. Gasp! Those who promulgated the Outcomes Based Education system wouldn’t have fared well 2,500 years ago in an Age of Anti-accommodation.
 
One wonders whether or not anyone who seeks accommodation by handicapping is actually aware of the consequences of accommodating-gone-wild: Mediocrity.
 
*https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen/
 
**https://phys.org/news/2020-10-potty-nasa-23m-titanium-space.html
 
***Pride, greed (avarice), lust, envy, wrath, gluttony, and sloth.
 
****It’s a short read and worth your effort.

“So, now we have some corroborating evidence that a supernova occurred near Earth about two to four million years ago.* The new findings support a supernova not much more than 300 light-years from Earth. Lucy or her australopithecine ancestors or descendants could have seen it. I’ll bet that was something to behold though I doubt Lucy’s kind paid much attention unless they observed its first appearance. Think about it, when the Crab Pulsar went supernova it was bright enough, as they say, for ‘Chinese astronomers’ to see in 1054. We call its shroud of expanding gases the Crab Nebula, and we know it centers on the remnant neutron star made in that supernova 6,500 light-years away. Sixty-five hundred light years! And still bright enough to be seen by naked eye and recorded by the advanced modern hominins of the eleventh century!”
 
“Other than a bright light in the sky, what’s the big deal? I’ve seen the fireworks over the castle in Disney’s magic kingdom. Quite impressive. What’s a single bright light in the night in comparison?”
 
“But you don’t understand. A nearby supernova 2 to 4 million years ago showered Earth with cosmic rays and with iron and manganese found in Earth and moon rocks. Cosmic rays, you know, well, cosmic rays can cause mutations. They can change an atom or a molecular arrangement here or there quite by random. I might be different from Lucy because her species got hit by those cosmic rays that generated some new gene. They got hit, and some new gene evolved that allows me to think, to reason, even to daydream. That ancient stream of cosmic rays might have cascaded into a river of hominin change; I might be a product of that supernova. You, too.”
 
“Still, what’s the big deal? If cosmic rays have caused mutations, don’t we always undergo the changes they make? We’re being hit by them as we speak.”
 
“Yes, but the shower of cosmic rays had to be a bit larger than usual after that star exploded, possibly producing a rain of change, so to speak.”
 
“Still not seeing why you’re fussing about it. We’re different from Australopithecus afrarensis, plain and simple. What’s happened, happened. Nothing we can do about it, except live with the result into which we seem to have been fated. Life changes as Heraclitus’ river always changes—even more so down the... .”
 
“It just shows that we’re not isolated from events separated from us by either time or space. It isn’t proof that some specific mutation occurred because we can never trace a cosmic ray bombardment to a specific change in biology. It is evidence that such bombardments have occurred, however. Just talking in a stream of consciousness here, but speaking of stream of consciousness, I should say that maybe Finnegan’s Wake or Joyce’s Ulysses wouldn’t exist if that supernova hadn’t hit the australopithecines.”
 
“Novels! Now you’re talking about novels because of a supernova two to four million years ago?”
 
“They just popped into my head as though they were unexpected cosmic rays arriving out of the blue, er, the dark sky of the universe, just a flash, but there’s some relevance. I mean, think of Finnegan’s Wake that Joyce begins and ends in the middle of the same sentence, making a cycle that relates present to past and past to present. Joyce begins the novel with ‘riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodious vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs’ and he ends the book with the beginning of that first sentence: ‘A way a lone a last a loved a long the…’ and then back to the word riverrun.”
 
“You’re losing me.”
 
“Well, here we are in 2020, definitely a tumultuous year…but there I go in my own stream of consciousness…anyway back to cosmic rays and Finnegan’s Wake. The ‘route of the commodious vicus,’ or ‘wide village’ is a trace around Ireland that begins and ends in the same place. Here we are, as I said, in 2020 finding a possible connection to our own ‘Adam and Eve’ and our own origins in a blast of cosmic rays that hit Lucy or her kind or some other group on its evolutionary path to us, to our brains, to our ability to stream both consciousness and history, and to our looking up to the skies not just in wonder, but in knowing what we’re looking at and how it might be connected to who we are and how we got be what we are. And it makes me think of how I’m connected to events that I could not possibly have known unless I had some mutation that led to my and my species having the ability to see the past and relate it to the present. Wow! Now there’s a stream of thinking. But see what I mean? We find manganese-53 in a rock, and we find a connection to our evolution, to our ancient ancestors.”
 
“Don’t worry. We all do that stream of consciousness thing. But I am beginning to see something in your rambles: An explosion in the past is the reason that we can think about and know about the explosion in the past. It’s almost as though that ancient blast made sure we would know about it though that would be too teleological an interpretation. I know the star didn’t know that it might have made it possible for us to know about it. It was ironically an unconscious substance and event that might have helped us arrive at a state of consciousness capable of a stream of thoughts. And I’m wondering now whether or not this current generation isn’t being hit by some cosmic particle that will lead to some change in our species and an unforeseen future ability. That makes me think that some fleeting event today might affect which genes get passed on through the filters of disease, accident, murder, war, or cosmic event just as certain genes passed from the australopithecines to us.”
 
“Sorry, what? I was drifting down the riverrun of daydreaming about supernovae, Lucy, iron, manganese, and rocks.”
 
 
*Korschinek G. et al. Supernova-Produced 53Mn on Earth. Phys. Rev. Lett. 125 031101. 17 Jul 2020.   https://phys.org/news/2020-09-stellar-explosion-earth-proximity.html
Technical University Munich. Supernova iron found on moon. 14 Apr 2016. https://phys.org/news/2016-04-supernova-iron-moon.html