jelly beans

Apparently, people amount to just that, jelly beans. Check out this doozy of an article that appeared in USA Today on the 7th: “LATEST SHUTTLE CREW IS ONE OF DIVERSITY- NASA Corps still has ‘a ways to go’ The seven astronauts on space shuttle Discovery will be undistinguishable today as they wait for liftoff clad in bubble helmets and orange launch suits, but their gear will mask a milestone: For the first time, two African-Americans will rocket into space together. They’ll be joined on their 12-day flight by a half-Indian astronaut, making this the most diverse shuttle crew in recent years. The six crewmembers on September’s flight were white. The composition of Discovery’s crew illustrates how far NASA has come in building an astronaut corps that reflects America…. ‘We’ve made some great strides, and this mission is an example of that,’ says former astronaut Winston Scott, an African-American who is vice president of the Engineering Sciences Contract Group in Houston. ‘But clearly there is a ways to go.’” Hm. Is it just me, or should we be worrying more about people's qualifications rather than their skin color? I was raised to think that skin color was just as important as eye or hair color. (Unless you were really white to begin with...in which case you want to make sure your skin never turns red) Seriously; if we wanted a really diverse crew, we would send a contingent of righties as well as lefties, democrats and republicans, artists and engineers...and the mission quite possibly would end in a disaster. Who cares whether the astronauts are black or white or latino? Let's just make sure they know what they're doing, please. It would seem America does have a ways to go if we're still tolerating this kind of stupidity.