According to a report on Channel 12, a UPN affiliate here in Portland, one of the grave dangers of the de-orbit of the Russian space station Mir is the possibility that mutant fungus growing on the surface of the space station may pose a serious biological risk. I didn’t actually watch the news show itself, figuring that the teaser commercial during Star Trek: Voyager was probably more than enough. Especially since I haven’t been able to follow up on the story on any of the news sites I frequent. And you’d think that a story this big would be all over CNN, MSNBC, Space.com, or at least the Weekly World News.

Strangely, though, I can find no further coverage of this breaking story. Perhaps the fact that the surface of the Mir chunks will be sterilized by the heat of re-entry has something to do with it?

So, I’m sitting here now, trying to figure out which is weirder: Oregon, or people in general.

Point. There is an adult bookstore set to open in Washington County, Oregon. Because people are people, there are large protests naturally scheduled. Protests at adult bookstores (or against convenience stores that carry adult magazines) are pretty regular events. It’s as natural as sales managers promising software products that are technologically years beyond what humanity is capable of producing. What makes this protest different, though, is that the organizers say that they will be taking license plate numbers of the people who go to the store, finding out contact information, and getting in touch with their families.

Is it just me, or is that sort of intimidation just as immoral as these people believe these adult bookstores are? I’m not the kind of person who would frequent this kind of store on a regular basis (only once or twice, I swear!), but this sort of thing almost makes me want to go there, just so I can be there to hear Jennifer say something like, "Yes, he was picking up a few things for me" when they call her on the phone. I would really like to be there for that. Yes, indeed.

Now Oregon is also considering closing its nude beaches. I have nothing against nude beaches — I don’t have any feelings towards them either way, really. But I always worry when government of any sort gets involved in trying to legislate morality like this. Funny how the people who are often so unwilling to trust the government with their money are so eager to trust the government with their souls.

Yet at the same time, there are big protests by college students who are opposed to the cutting of college funding. I heard a speech by one protester on Public Radio this morning which decried the governor for being out of the state. What polarity! I would normally think that Oregon is just plain odd, but then I remember that California legalized medicinal marijuana in the same election where we outlawed providing educational and medical services to children of illegal immigrants.

The only conclusion I can reach is that it’s people that are weird. People in general, not just people of one state or another.

But back to the mutant fungus from outer space.

I am a bit fan of SETI — the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. I am of the school of thought that there are certainly other forms of intelligent life in the universe. They may be rare, but they are certainly there. I don’t believe that any extraterrestrials we find will look like human beings with funny foreheads, as in Star Trek; in fact, I doubt we’ll even recognize them as intelligent life forms at all. As my favorite comic philosopher, Calvin, once said, "I think that the surest sign of intelligent life is that none of it has tried to contact us." Somehow, there’s a common assumption that alien intelligences would be somehow superior to us in technology and in their civilization.

As for me, though… Well, I’m convinced that if there is any intelligent life out there, it will be just as weird as we are.
There’s a weird sort of comfort in that. Don’t you think?