• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

No one could have predicted…

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

This fight is for everything.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Mobile Menu

  • Four Directions Montana
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2024 Elections
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Open Threads / Roger, Zero G, And I Feel Fine

Roger, Zero G, And I Feel Fine

by TaMara|  December 8, 20164:27 pm| 108 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

FacebookTweetEmail

174537main_glenn_john_hr

Oh, that view is tremendous!

Safe travels to the heavens, Senator Glenn:

The first American to orbit the Earth has died. John Glenn was the last surviving member of the original Mercury astronauts. He would later have a long political career as a U.S. senator, but that didn’t stop his pioneering ways.

Sigh.

Update to include this sweet photo h/t napolean:

A sweet thing: The late astronaut and senator John Glenn and his wife Annie were married for *73 years*. Condolences, Annie. pic.twitter.com/KbTykwcIP6

— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) December 8, 2016

 

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Fuck You and Your “Democrats Have to End Identity Politics to Win” Bullshit
Next Post: We Have Appliances »

Reader Interactions

108Comments

  1. 1.

    Robin G.

    December 8, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    #2016

  2. 2.

    napoleon

    December 8, 2016 at 4:30 pm

    Saw this picture in Josh Marshall’s twitter feed of Glenn and his wife looking no more then maybe 18

    https://twitter.com/stevesilberman/status/806965878415769600

  3. 3.

    geg6

    December 8, 2016 at 4:31 pm

    A truly good and brave man. His devotion to his wife is the best indication of the quality of his character. Bon voyage, Senator!

  4. 4.

    raven

    December 8, 2016 at 4:33 pm

    During the Korean War, Glenn was assigned to VMF-311, flying the new F9F Panther jet interceptor. He flew his Panther in 63 combat missions, gaining the nickname “magnet ass” from his alleged ability to attract enemy flak.

  5. 5.

    Mary G

    December 8, 2016 at 4:36 pm

    I loved the scene in “The Right Stuff” where John Glenn won’t tell his wife to let LBJ into their house to be congratulated on TV because she is petrified (because she stutters) and LBJ has a hissy fit in his car. That’s a good man.

    A sweet thing: The late astronaut and senator John Glenn and his wife Annie were married for *73 years*. Condolences, Annie. pic.twitter.com/KbTykwcIP6— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) December 8, 2016

    The photo of the young John and Annie in that tweet is adorable.

  6. 6.

    slag

    December 8, 2016 at 4:36 pm

    He may not like this, but my favorite story about John Glenn is about his pee: http://www.maximumfun.org/memory-palace/memory-palace-episode-61-glowing-orbs. Thanks to all who have dedicated their lives to exploration, science, and improving the human condition.

  7. 7.

    gogol's wife

    December 8, 2016 at 4:40 pm

    @napoleon:

    That is adorable!

  8. 8.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    December 8, 2016 at 4:44 pm

    Man, The Right Stuff was great. In pace requiescat, Senator Glenn.

  9. 9.

    Patricia Kayden

    December 8, 2016 at 4:51 pm

    @Mary G: Adorable!! 73 years of marriage. Wowzers.

    RIP Mr. Glenn.

  10. 10.

    Chris

    December 8, 2016 at 4:51 pm

    @Mary G:

    I loved the scene in “The Right Stuff” where John Glenn won’t tell his wife to let LBJ into their house to be congratulated on TV because she is petrified (because she stutters) and LBJ has a hissy fit in his car. That’s a good man.

    Me too! Great movie.

    RIP to a great astronaut, good politician, and by all accounts a good man.

  11. 11.

    amygdala

    December 8, 2016 at 4:53 pm

    @raven: “Magnet ass”… that’s awesome.

    Bless you, Senator Glenn, and thank you.

  12. 12.

    Helen

    December 8, 2016 at 4:54 pm

    Is Glenn the one who punched the asshole who said the moon landing was fake? If so someone please post the UTube.

    Also FUCK 2016. Only 23 days left. Thank the goddess.

  13. 13.

    Chris

    December 8, 2016 at 4:55 pm

    @Helen:

    Also FUCK 2016. Only 23 days left. Thank the goddess.

    The thing that scares me is that we think 2016 was bad, look at what’ll happen within the first month of 2017. We ain’t seen nothing yet.

  14. 14.

    Mike E

    December 8, 2016 at 4:56 pm

    @Mary G: Fcuk LBJ
    /inb4raven

    Adding, Donald Moffat’s maniacal portrayal of the president is hilarious in that film

  15. 15.

    Nicole

    December 8, 2016 at 4:56 pm

    Glenn was also pretty instrumental in shutting down testing women to be astronauts in the 1960s. He testified before Congress that test pilots were best suited to be astronauts, even though women were not permitted to at the time be test pilots, and even though he, technically, didn’t meet the current qualifications to be an astronaut either, as was pointed out during the hearings. I’m not saying he wasn’t a good person; I think he truly was, but he was also a product of his times. I think his views on women evolved over the years, which is a good thing, but I remember him trying to come up with a good answer when he was sent back into space in the 1990s (when the story of the women who had gone through initial testing for space, the Mercury 13, came back briefly into the news) about why it was so essential to test the effects of space on the elderly, seeing as how he was a man and the majority of the elderly are women.

    Again, he was a good person, but it’s okay to remember him as the complicated human he was.

  16. 16.

    slag

    December 8, 2016 at 4:56 pm

    @Helen:

    Also FUCK 2016. Only 23 days left. Thank the goddess.

    You realize what’s going to happen in January of next year, right? At this point, I’d keep 2016 going forever if I could.

  17. 17.

    napoleon

    December 8, 2016 at 4:56 pm

    @Helen:

    That was Buzz Aldren (sp?) who, at least last week, was in a hospital in NZ or Australia after falling ill in Antartica.

  18. 18.

    Schlemazel

    December 8, 2016 at 4:57 pm

    I was 10 when he orbited the earth, that was probably the perfect age to have a hero and as a sci-fi fan who could be a bigger hero than an honest to god spaceman?

    God speed, John Glenn.

  19. 19.

    geg6

    December 8, 2016 at 4:58 pm

    @Helen:

    I’m pretty sure that was Buzz Aldrin.

  20. 20.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 8, 2016 at 4:59 pm

    @napoleon:

    What a wonderful photo! I love it!!

  21. 21.

    Helen

    December 8, 2016 at 5:00 pm

    @Chris: I know.
    @slag: I know.

    Really, I do.

  22. 22.

    Schlemazel

    December 8, 2016 at 5:00 pm

    @Helen:
    No, that was Buzz Aldrin. Another hero even before he punched that asshole. Also maybe on his last voyage soon, he was vacationing in Antarctica and had to be medivaced to Australia.

  23. 23.

    Bailey

    December 8, 2016 at 5:01 pm

    @Helen:

    Is Glenn the one who punched the asshole who said the moon landing was fake? If so someone please post the UTube.

    That was Buzz Aldrin punching out “journalist” Bart Sibrel.

  24. 24.

    Ryan

    December 8, 2016 at 5:02 pm

    Fuck you 2016.

  25. 25.

    napoleon

    December 8, 2016 at 5:03 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I especially love the high freckle count in the picture. They had known each other since they were kids.

  26. 26.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    December 8, 2016 at 5:06 pm

    @Helen: @Helen: Then stop wishing 2017 on us, k?

  27. 27.

    Helen

    December 8, 2016 at 5:07 pm

    @Bailey: Woo yeah. That made me feel good even tough it wasn’t Glenn. Thanks.

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 8, 2016 at 5:08 pm

    @napoleon:

    They really epitomised what we used to think of as “all-American kids.” I’m glad we’ve broadened the definition these days, but I’m sure you know what I mean. They could have stepped right out of “Pleasantville” or something. Just adorable.

    (“High freckle count,” hee.)

  29. 29.

    trollhattan

    December 8, 2016 at 5:09 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer:
    Thing is, we all know 2017 will be a shitshow and will prepare for it as best we can. I’m not alone having headed into 2016 telling my kid she was about to witness history as we elected American’s first woman president. The rest of the shitty stuff, well…fuck you, 2016.

  30. 30.

    jackmac

    December 8, 2016 at 5:15 pm

    I’m a little teary-eyed as I contemplate John Glenn’s passing. Last of the Mercury astronauts. A hero of my youth. And a truly great American who served his country in so many ways. I thought one day he even might be president of the United States. Condolences to the Glenn family and his many friends and supporters in Ohio, throughout the country and around the world.

    Godspeed John Glenn.

  31. 31.

    David Hunt

    December 8, 2016 at 5:18 pm

    I hesitate to speculate what great soul 2016 is holding until the last few day of the year to snatch. I am glad that the Pope and the Dali Lama seem to be in good health.

    Terrible to hear that Aldin is sick as well. Best wishes, Buzz.

  32. 32.

    Barbara

    December 8, 2016 at 5:22 pm

    @Bailey: That fellow is demented — carrying a Bible around for Aldrin to swear on that he walked on the moon and asking whether he had repented his lies! All I ask of cranks is that they be harmless and unintrusive. Is that too much?

  33. 33.

    Helen

    December 8, 2016 at 5:22 pm

    @Comrade Scrutinizer: Dude. It’s coming. Buckle up. Also – I live on this planet too.

  34. 34.

    germy

    December 8, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    @Barbara:

    In July 2009, Sibrel, who works as a Nashville taxicab driver, was charged with vandalism when he jumped up and down on the hood of a car owned by a woman with whom he was having a parking dispute. Court documents show he was arrested after the driver refused to pull out of a parking space he wanted. The arresting officer wrote, “A few moments later the parking space in front of the victim opened up and [Sibrel] drove into it and parked.” Sibrel “then walked up to the victim’s car and jumped onto the hood, and then jumped up and down several times.” The report says he caused about US$1,400 worth of damage,[14] after which Sibrel pleaded guilty to vandalism and was placed on probation.

  35. 35.

    trollhattan

    December 8, 2016 at 5:31 pm

    O/T Tina Fey will make your day better. Really.

  36. 36.

    randy khan

    December 8, 2016 at 5:33 pm

    The Space Shuttle flight was entirely a stunt about giving a perk to a very supportive Senator who’d also been an astronaut (despite any hand-waving about scientific value), but I loved it anyway and loved even more that Glenn wanted to go back to space at his age.

    Lest we forget, Glenn was in the same Marine fighter plane squadron as Ted Williams during the Korean War (and they had a mutual admiration society – Glenn said after Williams died that he might have hit .400 as a baseball player, but he hit 1.000 as a Marine). Think about that convergence.

    (And I should not neglect to mention the one millionth example of Boston sports reporting myopia: The headline at the New England Sports Network page about Glenn’s death is, I kid you not: “John Glenn, American Hero Who Served with Ted Williams, Dies at Age 95.”)

  37. 37.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 8, 2016 at 5:36 pm

    @Mary G: The American Speech, Hearing, and Language Association – the professional organization for Speech Language Pathologists – has an Annie Glenn award.

    http://leader.pubs.asha.org/article.aspx?articleid=2291863

    Sen. John Glenn and his beloved wife Annie visited the ASHA national office in June for a ceremony to unveil the Annie Glenn Award that will be displayed permanently at ASHA’s office. The award, known as the “Annie,” has been presented since 1987 to individuals who demonstrate tremendous strength and use that strength to benefit others (see story). The permanent display honors Annie Glenn’s strong support and advocacy on behalf of ASHA, its members, and individuals with communication disorders. An individual who has dealt with stuttering for most of her life, Annie Glenn credits speech-language pathologists for her ability to speak fluently, and has emerged as a national advocate. Shown in the photo above in front of the “Annie” display case in the national office lobby are (from left), ASHA President Tommie Robinson Jr., ASHA Executive Director Arlene Pietranton, Annie Glenn, and Sen. John Glenn.

  38. 38.

    MomSense

    December 8, 2016 at 5:37 pm

    @slag:

    I’m not optimistic about 2017 but I’m determined to fight the bastards.

  39. 39.

    Brachiator

    December 8, 2016 at 5:38 pm

    @Nicole:

    Glenn was also pretty instrumental in shutting down testing women to be astronauts in the 1960s. He testified before Congress that test pilots were best suited to be astronauts, even though women were not permitted to at the time be test pilots, and even though he, technically, didn’t meet the current qualifications to be an astronaut either, as was pointed out during the hearings.

    Of course, the process that restricted the astronaut candidate pool began before Glenn.

    NASA representatives George Low and Astronauts John Glenn and Scott Carpenter testified that the women could not qualify as astronaut candidates. NASA required all astronauts to be graduates of military jet test piloting programs and have engineering degrees. In 1962, no women could meet these requirements.

    This stupidly excluded women aviators who otherwise had the right stuff. A program that put women through the same training process proved it, even though the results were ignored for years.

    By the end of the summer of 1961, nineteen women pilots had taken astronaut fitness examinations at the Lovelace Clinic. Unlike NASA’s male candidates, who competed in group, each woman came to Albuquerque either alone or in a pair for the week of tests. All of the women were skilled airplane pilots with commercial ratings. Most of them were recruited through the Ninety-Nines, a women pilot’s organization. Others heard about the testing through friends or newspaper articles and volunteered. The oldest candidate, Jane Hart, was a forty-one year old mother of eight and the wife of a U.S. Senator (Philip Hart-D of Michigan). The youngest, Wally Funk, was a twenty-three year old flight instructor ….

    In the end, thirteen women passed the same physical examinations that the Lovelace Foundation had developed for NASA’s astronaut selection process.

    It’s sad how sheer blindness led people to need to see a manly man as the sole model for an astronaut. It’s so great that those scales have fallen from our eyes today, and Americans would never, say, think that a bonehead fraud of a business tycoon would make a better president than a woman with all the right stuff.

    That said, Glenn and his fellow astronauts were indeed the Magnificent Seven.

  40. 40.

    Miss Bianca

    December 8, 2016 at 5:44 pm

    @napoleon: Oh, that is so sweet.

  41. 41.

    Chris

    December 8, 2016 at 5:46 pm

    @jackmac:

    I’m a little teary-eyed as I contemplate John Glenn’s passing. Last of the Mercury astronauts. A hero of my youth. And a truly great American who served his country in so many ways. I thought one day he even might be president of the United States. Condolences to the Glenn family and his many friends and supporters in Ohio, throughout the country and around the world.

    I get doubly teary-eyed simply for looking at things like what John Glenn was a part of and remembering just what a short time ago we were still a country that could do this.

    Imagine somebody today proposing something on the scale of the space program, or the interstate highway system, or the Marshall Plan, or the World War Two war effort, or the electrification of the rural South. Because I can’t. “Conventional wisdom,” the kind formed in the post-Reagan era, would claim that accomplishing that was simply impossible. Then, it would claim that even if it were hypothetically possible, it would be impossible for the Bloated and Inefficient and Bureaucratic federal government to do it. And then, it could that even if the federal government could hypothetically do it, to do it would be an unprecedented attack on the constitutional rights of perennially butthurt assholes who just want to watch the world burn.

    (This despite the fact that even the major scientific/technological advancement our age is known for, the Internet, is also a U.S. government achievement, made possible because the DOD invested in research that the private sector said was impossible and would never yield any fruit).

  42. 42.

    randy khan

    December 8, 2016 at 5:47 pm

    @David Hunt:

    Reports are that Aldrin is on the mend. Fingers crossed.

    Also, he’s being treated by . . . wait for it . . . Dr. David Bowie.

    You really can’t make this stuff up.

  43. 43.

    Lizzy L

    December 8, 2016 at 5:47 pm

    Check ignition and may God’s love be with you…

  44. 44.

    Miss Bianca

    December 8, 2016 at 5:48 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Oh…that is sweet, too. Love it that there’s an “Annie” award out there.

  45. 45.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 8, 2016 at 5:50 pm

    @randy khan:

    That NESN headline is hilarious. I’ve forwarded it to my Boston FB friends (avid, if not rabid, Red Sox fans all).

  46. 46.

    Gin & Tonic

    December 8, 2016 at 5:58 pm

    @randy khan: I always loved the iconic “Hub Man Killed in Blast” for the Boston headline the day after NYC was leveled in a nuclear explosion.

  47. 47.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 8, 2016 at 5:58 pm

    @randy khan:

    Also, he’s being treated by . . . wait for it . . . Dr. David Bowie.

    One can only hope that Dr. Bowie is a surgeon.

  48. 48.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 8, 2016 at 5:59 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: True story. One of the bedrooms in my new house has its ceiling painted red, because Red Sox.

  49. 49.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 8, 2016 at 6:02 pm

    @Lizzy L:

    Although I’m a lower-case “a” agnotheist, I love the expression “Rest in Peace and Rise in Glory.” I don’t use it often because it conveys a religious belief that I don’t subscribe to. But in any case, for John Glenn, he did the “Rise in Glory” bit almost 55 years ago, so this is like another return trip for him :-)

  50. 50.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 8, 2016 at 6:03 pm

    @Miss Bianca: The things you learn when your Mom is an SLP who did her degree and training at The OSU.

  51. 51.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 8, 2016 at 6:04 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    The Red Sox are my top favorite American League team.

    I wish you would post photos of your new house, especially as you and Husband Kitteh make it your own. I’ll bet Anne Laurie would be glad to put up pictures on a garden-light Sunday morning.

  52. 52.

    MikeBoyScout

    December 8, 2016 at 6:05 pm

    @Bailey: who knew that all the right stuff was sockng RW X-ian nut jobs in the kisser?

  53. 53.

    Mary G

    December 8, 2016 at 6:09 pm

    O/T but I think John Glenn would approve. My action item of the day: Give Five Minutes to Block Breitbart’s AdSense Revenue

    The premise: Breitbart (and many others) places Google’s AdSense on its site. Many entities use AdWords (the advertiser side) for widespread ad distribution, likely not realizing their ads end up on sites like Breitbart, who then receives revenue for clicks. Buyers of AdWords, once aware and if they choose, can easily block their ads from showing on (and thus paying ad $ to) individual sites.
    The small act: Screenshot an ad on Breitbart. Tweet the image to the entity, ask if they know it’s there, and kindly ask them to block this and other hate sites. Tag @slpng_giants.

    The writer got replies from three different places!

    Hitting them in the pocketbook feels good!

  54. 54.

    Mike in NC

    December 8, 2016 at 6:12 pm

    Farewell to a true patriot; won’t be seeing many heroes coming out of the Trump Crime Cartel.

  55. 55.

    rikyrah

    December 8, 2016 at 6:15 pm

    73 years of marriage?
    Wow
    RIP, Senator.

  56. 56.

    the Conster, la Citoyenne

    December 8, 2016 at 6:17 pm

    @randy khan:

    That’s hilarious.

  57. 57.

    khead

    December 8, 2016 at 6:19 pm

    The Mercury Seven was a bit like a bunch of Wile E Coyotes riding an Acme rocket around the Earth. With better planning – of course – but a person had to be a bit, uh, crazy brave to do what they did.

  58. 58.

    Miss Bianca

    December 8, 2016 at 6:21 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: your mom is a SLP? IMPRESSED.

    That’s one of the careers I seriously considered going back to school for, because I became so fascinated by the connections between speech-language difficulties and learning difficulties and disabilties.

  59. 59.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 8, 2016 at 6:21 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Yeah but painting the ceiling red is a bit much, don’t you think?

  60. 60.

    ThresherK

    December 8, 2016 at 6:24 pm

    Okay, about a week ago I stopped making Elder public figure X, be on the lookout jokes.

    This year. Wow.

  61. 61.

    Schlemazel

    December 8, 2016 at 6:29 pm

    @khead:
    When I worked at Kennedy Space Center I saw the original Redstone that Shepard & Grissom went up in. Now every attempt before Shepard’s ride had blown up but even without that insanity the rocket is tiny. No way a smart person would crawl into that! The rocket that actually had the power to get Glenn into orbit was not much bigger but still when you see what they were working with you understand that those guys were either nuts or brave to a level it is hard to understand.

  62. 62.

    Schlemazel

    December 8, 2016 at 6:37 pm

    BTW – there is a “museum” on KSC, I don’t think they have it on the public tour I know they didn’t when I worked there. There is a field with a bunch of old rockets, a V2, A V1, a Nike and several other small rockets. In the center is a small red gantry, maybe 20 feet tall. I found all this by accident when driving around with nothing to do. There was no sign or marker indicating what it was and it is well off the main road down a side road.

    On that red gantry was a small brass plaque that simple said “From this place on May 5th, 1961 Alan B. Shepard became the first American in space”. Talk about underselling

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 8, 2016 at 6:41 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I guess it depends on whether you ever want to sleep again :-)

  64. 64.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 8, 2016 at 6:45 pm

    @Chris:

    Imagine somebody today proposing something on the scale of the space program, or the interstate highway system, or the Marshall Plan, or the World War Two war effort, or the electrification of the rural South. Because I can’t.

    Universal health care could have been on that scale, but oh no, first it was all watered down and what remained was all “repeal and replace.”

  65. 65.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 8, 2016 at 6:47 pm

    @Miss Bianca: She is indeed. And has been since 1968.

  66. 66.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 8, 2016 at 6:49 pm

    @efgoldman: or a bordello

  67. 67.

    gogol's wife

    December 8, 2016 at 6:50 pm

    Does anyone remember when SNL did the “Long Island Lolita” (Amy Fisher) story as Masterpiece Theater? It was about the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve been devouring funny videos to try to keep from falling irrevocably into despair. I just looked for it on YouTube and didn’t find it.

  68. 68.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 8, 2016 at 6:53 pm

    @Bailey:

    YESSSSSSSSSS! As a rule I will go out of my way to avoid seeing violence, but that was very satisfying.

  69. 69.

    gogol's wife

    December 8, 2016 at 6:56 pm

    @efgoldman:

    Oh, that’s too bad. Yes, it was funnier than Bass-O-Matic.

  70. 70.

    Miss Bianca

    December 8, 2016 at 7:00 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: that is just so cool. so, she is still working?

  71. 71.

    pacem appellant

    December 8, 2016 at 7:00 pm

    Good time to check out, John. Godspeed. Ad astra per arda.

  72. 72.

    cmorenc

    December 8, 2016 at 7:05 pm

    I refuse to use the name “John Glenn. And the name Donald Trump, in the same sentence.

    One of them is a genuine brave American hero with personal modesty, the kind of person we all could admire and be proud of if they had become President, the other is a lying narcissistic braggart bully who is a legend in his own mind who we are deservedly ashamed of, but unfortunately did become President.

    There aren’t enough of the first kind around in this country, and way too many of the second kind. And we just lost one of the first kind.

  73. 73.

    Adam L Silverman

    December 8, 2016 at 7:06 pm

    @Miss Bianca: Yes. You can have her swallow study kit when you take it from her cold dead hands…

  74. 74.

    mdblanche

    December 8, 2016 at 7:06 pm

    @napoleon: @Lizzy L: “Tell my wife I love her very much,” “She knows.”

  75. 75.

    Honus

    December 8, 2016 at 7:15 pm

    @randy khan: and Glenn invited Ted Williams to that space shuttle launch.

  76. 76.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    December 8, 2016 at 7:29 pm

    @gogol’s wife:

    Couldn’t find a video, but it’s from the show of January 9, 1993, if that helps for further searching.

  77. 77.

    daverave

    December 8, 2016 at 7:34 pm

    Never met the man but Original 7 astronaut Wally Schirra grew up in the same town that I did in Bergen County, New Jersey. His childhood home was just two doors down from my house. He went to the same elementary school and was a member of the same Boy Scout troop albeit thirty years earlier, back when the entire country had heroes in common. Today, not so much…

  78. 78.

    JMG

    December 8, 2016 at 7:34 pm

    On another board, work related (former work in my case), one of the posters said he grew up in Cocoa Beach and saw all six Mercury launches from his front yard as a little kid. Pretty great.

  79. 79.

    Kelly

    December 8, 2016 at 7:40 pm

    My first Hero. I was 5 when he first orbited.

  80. 80.

    Patricia Kayden

    December 8, 2016 at 7:41 pm

    @Mary G: There’s a link in that article to hundreds of companies who are blocking their ads from Breitbart. Great to see people taking action against this administration and its minions.

  81. 81.

    gogol's wife

    December 8, 2016 at 7:53 pm

    @Steeplejack (tablet):

    Thanks! I had no idea it was that long ago. But it has Chris Rock playing Mrs. Buttafuoco at one point and it’s funny as hell. I think the concept was, they played the Amy Fisher story three different ways — I remember Masterpiece Theater, but don’t remember what the other ones were, although certainly Chris Rock wasn’t in the Masterpiece Theater variant.

  82. 82.

    gogol's wife

    December 8, 2016 at 7:58 pm

    @Steeplejack (tablet):

    It was with Danny DeVito — the Masterpiece Theater version was House of Buttafuoco, but the one with Chris Rock was Amy Fisher: One Messed-Up Bitch. I think they interspersed them throughout the program.

  83. 83.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    December 8, 2016 at 8:00 pm

    @gogol’s wife:

    Chris Rock and Ellen Cleghorne were in the version done by BET.

    There is an NBC app you can download that lets you see full episodes of SNL, but I don’t know if it goes back that far. I did some more searching and found a few sketches from that show, but not the one you want.

  84. 84.

    SFBayAreaGal

    December 8, 2016 at 8:02 pm

    To Infinity And Beyond.

    My mom loved everything about the Right Stuff. She collected newspaper articles about the space race,the NASA space patches, and many more. She was thrilled to see sci-fi become fact. John Glenn was one of her heroes.

  85. 85.

    PST

    December 8, 2016 at 8:05 pm

    I remember meeting the Glenns when I was a high school senior back in 1971. That was after John Glenn was out of the military and before he was elected to the senate. He was the chair of an Ohio commission on environmental policy. The high school debate topic that year involved pollution control, and he agreed to meet with some debaters. No doubt we kids made a remarkable contribution to his understanding of the subject. I recall clearly the difficulty Annie Glenn had with her stutter and was surprised years later when she became a polished speaker.

  86. 86.

    gogol's wife

    December 8, 2016 at 8:14 pm

    @Steeplejack (tablet):

    This was all inspired by reading that the show Mozart in the Jungle commissioned Nico Muhly to write an Amy Fisher aria for their diva.

  87. 87.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 8, 2016 at 8:20 pm

    In case you haven’t seen it, here’s a nice remembrance of John Glenn by his friend and fellow Ohioan, columnist Connie Schultz.

  88. 88.

    Mustang Bobby

    December 8, 2016 at 8:21 pm

    I met the Glenns on Election Day night in Cincinnati in 1970. I was a student volunteer for the John Gilligan for Governor campaign and a bunch of us had driven down from Toledo. We were all at this big hotel downtown and Col. Glenn invited some of us into his suite to watch the returns. He couldn’t have been nicer, but I spent a lot of time talking to Mrs. Glenn. She was utterly charming and down-to-earth, but I could tell that she adored her husband; she kept saying that he was going to run again and WIN! And he did.

  89. 89.

    PST

    December 8, 2016 at 8:26 pm

    @Mustang Bobby:

    I was a student volunteer for the John Gilligan for Governor campaign and a bunch of us had driven down from Toledo.

    You’re from Toledo? Me too. Whitmer ’71. We were just back there knocking on doors for Hillary and we’ll be there again for Hanukkah.

  90. 90.

    Miss Bianca

    December 8, 2016 at 8:38 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I’m really glad I was done swallowing myself when I read that!

  91. 91.

    Bailey

    December 8, 2016 at 8:39 pm

    @JMG:

    On another board, work related (former work in my case), one of the posters said he grew up in Cocoa Beach and saw all six Mercury launches from his front yard as a little kid. Pretty great.

    I lived in Orlando for a bit in college and went to the beach to watch Space Shuttle Atlantis go up. It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.

  92. 92.

    J R in WV

    December 8, 2016 at 8:39 pm

    What a great and long life Senator Glenn lived. Amazing.

    RIP.

  93. 93.

    schrodinger's cat

    December 8, 2016 at 8:53 pm

    @efgoldman: It was indeed, the red room of doom. I am going to repaint it.

  94. 94.

    sherparick

    December 8, 2016 at 8:59 pm

    A marvelous man who lived a marvelous life

  95. 95.

    Woodrowfan

    December 8, 2016 at 9:03 pm

    another childhood hero, and another Ohio flight pioneer gone. :(

  96. 96.

    Sab

    December 8, 2016 at 9:11 pm

    @JMG: I grew up in Florida in the sixties, and we used to watch the mercury launches on tv in class, and then rush outside to the playground to watch the rocket go by, and the boosters drop off one by one. Very cool.

  97. 97.

    randy khan

    December 8, 2016 at 9:31 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I know one of Sherrod Brown’s relatives, and when I talked to her about Glenn today, she told a similar story about how gracious he and his wife were.

  98. 98.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 8, 2016 at 9:51 pm

    @randy khan:

    Nice! I expect there will be quite a few similar remembrances over the next several days. He always came across as just really nice and decent.

    He coulda been a Canadian.

  99. 99.

    SiubhanDuinne

    December 8, 2016 at 9:54 pm

    @Miss Bianca:

    I’m really glad I was done swallowing myself

    Are you Ouroboros?

  100. 100.

    Miss Bianca

    December 8, 2016 at 10:06 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: No, gesundheit!

    Should have been a comma in there, I s’pose: “swallowing, myself” v. “swallowing myself”.

    Live by the grammar Nazi sword, die by the grammar Nazi sword…

  101. 101.

    Omnes Omnibus

    December 8, 2016 at 10:23 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Well played.

  102. 102.

    Aleta

    December 8, 2016 at 10:58 pm

    Once I got very lucky and was invited for pizza at the home of one of the Gemini-Apoollo pilots. He was in his 70s but still piloted a jet himself when he went to DC to ask for more support for the space program. He was funny. He said one of the hard things about being in space was he was always losing things. He’d set down a tool while he was fixing something, and even though the capsule was small it was quite hard to find things once they had floated off.

  103. 103.

    JAFD

    December 8, 2016 at 10:58 pm

    Was walking south on Broadway last night, noted that he and the Discovery crew were in the last ‘ticker-tape-parade’ not held for a sports star or team. (There are letters embedded in the sidewalk, commemorating them all. Just don’t cause collisions while looking down.) (Note that he did not get one for earlier space feats.)

    (For trivia question of day, who was the last non-American (not counting sport players) to get one ? )

    And now he belongs to the stars. Ave atque vale!

  104. 104.

    sralloway

    December 8, 2016 at 11:52 pm

    @napoleon: It was Aldrin.

  105. 105.

    TriassicSands

    December 9, 2016 at 12:41 am

    Seventy-three years.

    73.

    Incredible. RIP Senator Astronaut Glenn.

  106. 106.

    Mustang Bobby

    December 9, 2016 at 6:01 am

    @PST: MVCDS Class of ’71. Haven’t been back since my parents moved from Perrysburg to Cincinnati in 2013. I used to knock on doors, too, all the way with LBJ, then Humphrey/Muskie and finally Jack Gilligan before I went off to college.

  107. 107.

    PST

    December 9, 2016 at 10:34 am

    @Mustang Bobby: I realize this is a dead thread, but I get a kick out of finding another Toledo 1971 graduate here. My folks moved away while I was in college — it was the only way to get my brother out of the house — but I married a girl from the old neighborhood last summer and go back from time to time to visit her mother.

  108. 108.

    Kenneth Kohl

    December 9, 2016 at 1:04 pm

    RIP, fellow Muskingum alum.

    Go Muskies!

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Comments

  • wjca on Monday Evening Open Thread: Another ‘Rich’ Narcissist, Having A Bad Start to His Week (Apr 16, 2024 @ 2:03am)
  • Princess on Monday Evening Open Thread: Another ‘Rich’ Narcissist, Having A Bad Start to His Week (Apr 16, 2024 @ 1:37am)
  • artem1s on Late Night Weekend Wrap-Up Open Thread: Journamalism, Not A Dependable Profit Center (Apr 16, 2024 @ 1:05am)
  • wjca on Monday Evening Open Thread: Another ‘Rich’ Narcissist, Having A Bad Start to His Week (Apr 16, 2024 @ 12:58am)
  • wjca on Monday Evening Open Thread: Another ‘Rich’ Narcissist, Having A Bad Start to His Week (Apr 16, 2024 @ 12:55am)

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Balloon Juice Meetups!

All Meetups
Talk of Meetups – Meetup Planning
Proposed BJ meetups list from frosty

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8
Virginia House Races
Four Directions – Montana
Worker Power AZ
Four Directions – Arizona
Four Directions – Nevada

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
Positive Climate News
War in Ukraine
Cole’s “Stories from the Road”
Classified Documents Primer

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Political Action 2024

Postcard Writing Information

Balloon Juice for Four Directions AZ

Donate

Balloon Juice for Four Directions NV

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2024 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!