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| Better start running, they're on their way... |
“No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter…Yet across the gulf of space…intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us…” Thus begins one of the greatest books ever written, “The War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells. The theme of this book has been re-written & refined by contemporary artists, giving us such treasures as: “This Island Earth,” “It Came From Outer Space” and “Zontar: The Thing From Venus.” Now, before you start laughing, I think you should stop and think about this a bit. Do you think they made these movies to make money? Come on, those ‘50’s flicks didn’t net dime one. No, there can only be one explanation. Much like the 1960’s “duck & cover” movies we watched in school trained us to take on those commie Russians and movies like “The Manchurian Candidate” prepared us to deal with those ever-present, but just slightly comical, evil Chinese plots; just as “Batman,” starring Adam West, braced us against notorious, costumed villains (a great job there, Adam West, as there are no longer any notorious, costumed villains to worry about!) these ‘50’s, drive-in movies began preparing us for something more insidious than any rattling, crappy Russian nuclear weapon made out of used pinball parts; any horde of armed, screaming, red chinamen charging across the beach; any costumed freak who has to come up with the most complicated way of killing his victims, then leaves so that they can escape by the most elementary means…Anyway these films were meant to prepare us for: (drum roll, please) invaders from Mars (or possibly Venus)! Yes, you’ve all been warned so there’s no excuse to just ignore the problem. You’ve seen the evidence: Marvin the “Martian” on Looney Tunes – he wants to blow up the Earth with an illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator…heck, he even admits it! And, check out the movie “Mars Attacks!” I mean you’d have to be a moron not to see the threat there (better start stockpiling those Slim Whitman records!) How about “UFO,” the ‘70’s smash hit series (ok, so maybe I was the only one who watched it but that doesn’t diminish the fact that the flying saucers came from Mars…probably.) And what’s up with all the UFO sightings that people have had over the years? Obviously, recon missions by Martians in preparation to invasion. And in all this what is NASA (the National Aeronautics and SPACE Administration) doing? Let’s see, no more shuttle flights…ya, we’ve got to rely on crappy, duct-taped, Russian Soyuz space ships left over from the cold war (that they probably had to sweep dust off of) to lift our astronauts to the space station (and, by the way, why don’t we have a really cool space station like the big spinning wheel in “2001” instead of that monstrosity we currently have hanging out there…and with foreigners on board? Who designed it anyway, Salvador Dali?) No new missions to the moon so no cool moon base to use as an outpost. I mean, come on…the moon? Not even back to the moon? Heck, they put 12 Americans on the surface of the moon back in the ‘60’s & ‘70’s using slide rules & an Apple IIe and we can’t even duplicate that nowadays? WTF? We’d better get off our butts & start building ships & laser guns to send to Mars and beyond, or else “NASA” will stand for “Not Another Space Adventure!” “Oh, we’ve got too many problems here on Earth to spend money in space…” you say? Blah, blah, blah. You know what, if you can afford to buy a new IPhone every time they release an upgraded model, you can afford to fund NASA the way it needs to be funded. And I’m not talking about funding silly little drones that pop out airbags when they land & go bouncing along the Martian surface like a gigantic beach ball. If we continue to do that the Martians will just laugh their heads off (all 3 of them!) No, it’s time we start building and deploying things they’ll take seriously. I’ll tell you what, you start landing Marines on Mars with cool laser guns or M41a pulse rifles firing 10mm, caseless, exploding projectiles, you’ll get their attention! But no, you’ve all decided that spending our money on things like studying the mating habits of the South Peruvian hairless Yak is more important. Ok, don’t say I didn’t warn you! Harrumph…
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