MIPOTW: Giant Leap

On July 20, 1969–40 years ago, today–Neil Armstrong became the first man to step onto the surface of the moon. To call his words the Most Interesting Phrase of the Week is almost laughable in its understatement. According to NASA’s timestamped transcript, Armstrong’s legendary statement was only a small sound byte in a lengthy and mission-focused dialog. I suppose stepping outside of the already precarious confines of a spacecraft that has just been planted on the surface of the moon wouldn’t leave much time for waxing poetic–though history confirms the power of his statement in it’s sheer simplicity. With the world watching…

109:23:38 Armstrong: I’m at the foot of the ladder. The LM footpads are only depressed in the surface about 1 or 2 inches, although the surface appears to be very, very fine grained, as you get close to it. It’s almost like a powder. (The) ground mass is very fine. (Pause)

109:24:13 Armstrong: I’m going to step off the LM now. (Long Pause)

109:24:48 Armstrong: That’s one small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind. (Long Pause)

109:25:08 Armstrong: Yes, the surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine, sandy particles.

109:25:30 McCandless: Neil, this is Houston. We’re copying. (Long Pause)

As the sun sets later and we look up at the lunar “lesser” light ruling this night, I’ll probably try to wrap my mind around the experience of seeing the “Earthrise” for the first time–an image we too easily see as commonplace. And, I will say to myself, “Man. ON. The Moon.”

Remarkable.

(Photos courtesy NASA.gov)

Tues Ten 040709: Runners Up

It’s lunchtime, and I’ve been perusing my digital diary in search of  inspiration.  I tend to record ideas and quotes or phrases I’ve read there in case I want to come back and think or write about them.  That’s where I usually pull Most Interesting Phrase of the Week entries to highlight.  I’ve found quite a few (actually 10) today.  So, in honor of Michigan State and their hanging around for the last dance, I present this week’s Tuesday Ten: “phrases” that were edged out (or beaten in solid double-digits) by one only momentarily more interesting.

1.  ”The only unavailable choice was whether or not to have Parkinson’s. Everything else was up to me.”
~ Michael J. Fox, in this USA Today article about his upcoming book

2.  ”While claiming to separate politics from science, he has in fact separated science from ethics and has brought the American government, for the first time in history, into supporting direct destruction of innocent human life.”
~ Bishop John D’Arcy in a statement quoted in this Fox News article about President Obama’s scheduled commencement address at Notre Dame

3. “…God-given promise that all are equal.  All are free.  All deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness…”
~ from my notes taken during President Obama’s inauguration address.  [disarmingly poignant juxtaposed with phrase #2]

4. “History is Your story.”
~ from my notes taken during Rick Warren’s prayer at the presidential Inauguration

5. “From a faith standpoint, my God is big enough – and I have told Him I am open enough – to hearing His voice correct me where I’m wrong. You are free to worry about my soul if you want, but I don’t think it’s necessary.”
~ slightly cosmopolitan in this post

6. “The phrase ‘social justice’ can be loaded. To some people it is a political or a liberal conversation, but to me, it is a Kingdom conversation. There are people behind these stories and statistics, and God’s heart for justice burns on their behalf.”
~ Sara Groves on her website

7. ”In a mad world, isn’t the madman who is aware of his madness the only sane person?”
~ Elie Wiesel, from his upcoming book, mentioned in this USA Today article

8. “It take a special kind of courage to face and deal with our past in-completions.  Often these in-completions are the most significant barrier to expressing our full creativity in the present.”
~quote from Gaye & Kathleen Hendricks in this post by Motivation Mama

9. “cartoon dramatization.  results not typical.”
~ fine print on a TV ad I saw for some kind of diet pill.  really? cartoon dramatizations aren’t typical?

10. “If I couldn’t make sense to a table full of liquored-up leftie hippie Buddhist artists, who could I make sense to?”
~ Polly Pagenhart, in a contributing essay for this book

I say that same thing to myself all the time!

Good Measure

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

MIPOTW: The Story

I’m either late on last week’s Most Interesting Phrase of the Week or early on this week’s.  We’ll see which one as the week progresses.  Either way, I was so pleased to read this USA Today interview with Eric Carle about the 40th anniversary of his classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We have the board book version, and it’s a favorite at bedtime and lots of other times.  Mr. Carle gives a great account of how the book was originally conceived and how he finally settled on the main character.  He’s just published a “pop-up” version of the book to commemorate the anniversary, and I can’t wait to get it.  Its interactive quality reminded him of “computers” which prompted this quote:

“I know things change,” he says. “I like to hold books and touch them. But in the future, who knows? When they invented papyrus, someone probably said, ‘Storytelling was so good. Why did we have to go and put it on papyrus?’ But one thing doesn’t change. It’s the story that counts.”

MIPOTW: Last Memory

The Most Interesting Phrase of the Week 022809:
Ok, I’m cheating.  How ’bout that?  This one came from an article I read last week in USAToday.  It was part news story about Elie Wiesel’s foundation losing much of its funds in the Maddoff investment scam, part book review of Mr. Wiesel’s new novel, and part awesome interview with an uncommon man.  Breaking my own rules again.  Twice in one post.  Tsk. Tsk.  But… Two statements stood out:

The irony has been noted: “It takes an extraordinarily heartless conman to swindle a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald and Nobel Peace Prize winner out of all of his charitable funds,” wrote James Bone in The Times of London.

Can I get an Amen?

Wiesel, who teaches religion and philosophy at Boston University, is among a dwindling number of concentration camp survivors: “We’re an endangered species. Someday, there will be just one left. I don’t want to be that person. It would be too heavy a burden to have the last word, the last memory.”

But, he says, “I tell my students and my readers that whoever reads or listens to a witness becomes a witness.”

Moving.