Time moves fast these days. Don't post for a day and you miss a national calamity.

There's already been a great deal of interesting posting and discussion on the destruction of Columbia, and while I'm grieving like anyone else, I have little to add, except a strange personal impression. I remember the Challenger disaster, and feeling more affected somehow --- perhaps because of the news buildup about the "Teacher in Space Program", perhaps just because it all seemed more novel then (though it's hardly gotten less dangerous). The Challenger felt, though, like an unalloyed loss. Mixed in with the other news at about this time, though, like the BBC report on Iraq which our local public radio station cut off for a repeat of the space shuttle coverage, the fall of Columbia in flames feels to me, as apparently to at least a few others, like an omen.