Every day I read and hear the tension in our nation, and in our local communities. We are a divided nation in that we believe differently, we think differently. Our spiritual or religious thoughts are different. Our political thoughts, our philosophical thoughts are different. Even our approach to solving problems is different. We truly are divided. 

But don’t get too depressed. We have been quite divided before. I’m not suggesting that our current problems aren’t real or even profound. Nor am I suggesting that we aren’t very angry about them. Clearly we are. I have even witnessed friends becoming less friendly because they disagree politically. But let me ask you this: Do think that the people who disagree with us are bad or immoral? I have had very serious disagreements with friends, and in the end, as angry as we both get, we know we are all good people. I would even go so far as to say that the vast majority of our politicians are good people. They are in fact representing us. Not every one is doing so. Some are representing those whom we disagree with. If they weren’t, they would get voted out of office. That’s the way a representative democracy works.

I told myself that I was not going to write about my White Mountain trip this past weekend, because I had written about my last trip there only about a month ago. However, as the weekend evolved, I decided that there was value in sharing some of what happened with you. 

Once again, I went with my best friend Mike from Long Island. He came up on Friday night for the Memorial Day weekend. My daughter Olivia loves her Uncle Mike (kids usually are drawn to him), and after some begging, Elaine and I agreed to let her stay up late to see him when he arrived. Although we planned to leave by 7 a.m. Saturday morning, we actually left around 10. Elaine, Mike and I enjoyed a cup of coffee and interesting conversation, and Olivia got some more time to play with Mike. The delay was well worth it.

Somewhere in the background, beyond all the noise around selecting candidates for this year’s elections, all but drowned out by the hubub and hooraw of the culture wars, and the various comings and goings of the Kardashian sisters – by the way, who are they, and why I should care about them? Really? – a new space race has been heating up. Companies such as Blue Origin, Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp., and SpaceX are all receiving millions of dollars from NASA to develop something to replace the space shuttle program, and thus keep America as an active participant in the International Space Station program. That’s one version of the story, anyway. SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. have also received support for the development of unmanned cargo spaceships. Cool, yes?

I don’t know what the total is, but I do know that it comes to quite a sum. And I know that things are tight in this country, any way you look at it. We’re deep in debt, the roads are in terrible shape, baby needs a new pair of shoes – do we really need to shell out tax dollars so private companies can blast those dollars willy-nilly into space?

In a word, yes.