I’ve now had time to sleep on it and reflect on NASA bombing the moon and I think it is okay in an Armageddon sort of way. I mean, I can accept all sorts of awful hardships in my own life, so long as they make a good story later. Why should I hold nation states to a higher standard?

NASA decided it would be awesome to bomb the moon, because a circus clown told them it would be a green thing to do, as the world needs clean water. Not just any circus clown though. A circus clown who is into acrobatics and very very very rich. All totally logical. If a writer pitched Batman having to stop the Joker from putting explosives on the moon, the idea would be dismissed as too ridiculous. Allow me to recap: NASA IS BOMBING THE MOON BECAUSE A CIRCUS CLOWN TOLD THEM TO. To discover ice water humanity already knows is there. Toss in double digit unemployment, the meltdown of much of the world’s economy, record bankruptcies, record foreclosures, banks and insurance companies looting the United States Treasury among others, the hunting of albinos, and various atrocities around the globe and you’ve got a cyberpunk noir too dark and too implausible to sell to any publisher.

Speaking of water, the Mayans were innovators in plumbing, built ground level aqueducts, and are believed to have had the first conduit drainage systems on the American continent. Mayan astronomers worried that the solstice moon and the Milky Way seemed to get closer together each year. The Mayan calendar has the world scheduled to end in 2012.

This week the movie The Ruins comes out on DVD. I always found Mayan history really interesting, especially the idea that there was an ancient very advanced culture which could just disappear with only a few descendants and cultural and physical artifacts to tell their tale. The characters in The Ruins go seeking a vacation adventure in Mayan archeological hiking. What they find is a carnivorous and sentient plant, bent on destroying them. I don’t think a super-intelligent hungry vine is really what ended the society of the Maya, but watching humans being stalked by a vegetable can be good viewing fun. I couldn’t help thinking of Little Shop of Horrors while watching though. (more…)