"When the Manhattan Project scientists – half-mad from years of grinding out atomic-level discoveries in the race to beat Germany to the bomb – emerged from their Los Alamos lab one morning, they looked up in terror at a strange bright light in the sky. Among the scientists was an astronomer who reassured the group that it was only Venus."
as told by Daniel Magariel
There I was chewing over this quote, tossing and thinking - as you do in the early hours before sunrise - until I realised what bothered me.
Let's replace 'only' with 'the magnificent, the wondrous, the mysterious' Venus.
Well, I guess everything is relative. When you've spent years staring mass annihilation in the face, "only" Venus is actually a good thing -- and quite wondrous even without being labeled as such. Don't you think?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely.
ReplyDeleteI see Venus often in the pre-dawn, particularly at this time of year, and the sight never fails to move me; it is indeed magnificent, mysterious, awesome. And then brother sun rises!
ReplyDeletei adore your edit.
ReplyDeleteYes! I run out every clear-sky morning to look at "the magnificent, the wondrous, the mysterious" Venus. I even shout hello!
ReplyDeleteshe is a beauty.
ReplyDeleteTake heart in this. Two generations down the pike the offsprings of those scientists had, in effect, beaten their swords into ploughshares and were now devising projects whereby we might frolic in the rings of Saturn. And, perhaps more appropriately, examining the very essence of humankind to see whether a little tweaking might do away with inherited maladies.
ReplyDeleteVenus and the things it has stood for on Earth (cut to the chase, I'm talking rumpy-pumpy) remains unchanged.