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AD ASTRA- "To The Stars": RIP Sally Ride...
13 years ago
"MORELS taste good in omelettes..."
...in case anyone hasn't heard of her, she was the first American woman in space. A science-writer, knowledgeable, and inspiration to girls and women everywhere who had any interest at all in the sciences. she was proof girls weren't just into dolls, boys and pop stars in an era of neon pinks, fluff and bubble-gum-flavoured superficiality.
For me, she was one of the many people I admired for their minds and deeds. I suppose I could even say she was a hero of mine. I do know I cheered her on when her first trip on the Challenger when I was fifteen, sitting in front of the TV, watching a replay of the takeoff (that flight was so early in the morning, I normally wouldn't have been up, yet). "See, Mom! Girls can SO go to space! We're not all fluffheads who can't do math!" That didn't change the fact that I was, personally, absolutely terrible at math, but that didn't stop me from being interested in science- it turned out to be one of my best subjects, incidentally.
I wonder if she cried for Challenger and it's crew when it was destroyed on take-off, and if if she wept, too, for Columbia, the other shuttle that died in re-entry.
Regarding crying, I suspect it wasn't something she personally did much of: she reportedly gave an odd look to the reporter that had asked her if she wept when a job didn't go right- the inherent sexism in the question seemed to baffle her. Why would she cry? Just because she's a woman? Are women more likely to be "weepy"? I wonder if thoughts like that went through her mind as she decided how to answer the idiot's sexist comment- “How come nobody ever asks a male those questions?" A good burn of that fool, proving there really is such a thing as a stupid question.
She was also gay- a fact she kept silent, not because she was afraid to reveal that fact (though she might have been, I don't know), but because she was a private person that felt no need to spread her life across the world. That privateness meant she also avoided the movie-deals, the ghost-written book and all the other sponsorship offers she was given over the years. Instead, she did what she loved: encouraging girls to go into the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).
No sell-out, that lady.
Pancreatic cancer is a nasty form of cancer that nearly always kills it's victim, and my sympathies are with her partner of 27 years, Tam O'Shaughnessy, her family, and her friends.
Add another hero gone, one who I will always admire.
For me, she was one of the many people I admired for their minds and deeds. I suppose I could even say she was a hero of mine. I do know I cheered her on when her first trip on the Challenger when I was fifteen, sitting in front of the TV, watching a replay of the takeoff (that flight was so early in the morning, I normally wouldn't have been up, yet). "See, Mom! Girls can SO go to space! We're not all fluffheads who can't do math!" That didn't change the fact that I was, personally, absolutely terrible at math, but that didn't stop me from being interested in science- it turned out to be one of my best subjects, incidentally.
I wonder if she cried for Challenger and it's crew when it was destroyed on take-off, and if if she wept, too, for Columbia, the other shuttle that died in re-entry.
Regarding crying, I suspect it wasn't something she personally did much of: she reportedly gave an odd look to the reporter that had asked her if she wept when a job didn't go right- the inherent sexism in the question seemed to baffle her. Why would she cry? Just because she's a woman? Are women more likely to be "weepy"? I wonder if thoughts like that went through her mind as she decided how to answer the idiot's sexist comment- “How come nobody ever asks a male those questions?" A good burn of that fool, proving there really is such a thing as a stupid question.
She was also gay- a fact she kept silent, not because she was afraid to reveal that fact (though she might have been, I don't know), but because she was a private person that felt no need to spread her life across the world. That privateness meant she also avoided the movie-deals, the ghost-written book and all the other sponsorship offers she was given over the years. Instead, she did what she loved: encouraging girls to go into the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).
No sell-out, that lady.
Pancreatic cancer is a nasty form of cancer that nearly always kills it's victim, and my sympathies are with her partner of 27 years, Tam O'Shaughnessy, her family, and her friends.
Add another hero gone, one who I will always admire.
Don't get me going on how many idiots tried to tell me that girls just "didn't do" certain activities, simply because they were female! My response to that was "the only difference between male and female is he pees standing up, and I can give birth. How does this make men superior again?" I was so rabid on the sexism topic, that in high-school, I even participated in one of those fitness-challenge things you can get an award for (Participaction program in Canada)- you could get these embroidered-fabric "medals", kind of like Olympians, in bronze, silver, and gold, with an extra-special medal for "excellent" scores. I had noticed that the scores needed to rate at the various levels were different for girls and boys, the boys' ratings being a fair bit higher. I asked my Phys-Ed teacher about this- who was a woman, by the way- and she replied that the scores were set that way because, on average, girls weren't as strong as boys! Wait. Whut? It blew my mind that a woman, built like a fucking BRICK, who could bench nearly her own weight, was telling me bullshit like that. So, I told her that I was going to enter the challenge, and that I was going to prove those stupid charts WRONG by hitting all of the boys' scores at the highest rating listed on those stupid charts.
It was my turn to blow the teacher's mind, not only did I actually do it, many of the activities I found easy (only two were difficult for me: the 2400 metre run in twelve minutes or less: made it barely in eleven and 40 seconds, and the standing long-jump: I had to make one metre 54 centimetres from a standing start, and she was gracious enough to let me do it three times before I made it). I was an active kid, but I was in no means in good shape, yet I was able to toss those charts on their ear. When I was called up to receive my award several weeks later, she announced to the class that "only one person made it to the top rating, and she did it using the boys' charts, not the girls'..." I had to go up, blushing beet-red (stage-fright from Hades) and face a whole class who normally and universally hated/picked on me, and see the jealousy in their eyes. That made up for a lot of bullying, I'll tell you- it also let them know that I could effing kill them if I ever actually got my paws on 'em! LOL
"First Dyke in space"... WOOT! Damned straight! Um, wait, uh, damned queer? No... Damned awesome! There, people can't screw that up. LOL