Thirty nine years ago today.

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. - John Kennedy

And on July 20, 1969 it happened. The sixties were a lot like the aughts or naughts or whatever you chose to call the fiasco of a decade we are in. Well, the aughts are like the 60s without the good parts. There were two counterbalancing trends in the 60s, the dreadfulness of what seemed like a never ending war and the excitement and challenge of the changes in music and culture and the race to the moon. Now we just have the never ending war. Well, and a collapsing housing market, crumbling infrastructure and a general loss of faith in the future. That is something that even with Vietnam going on and on, we didn't have in the 60s. Vietnam was a problem, a big one for many, but it didn't seem like the future would be worse than the present. That isn't the way it is now. The Iraq war is less of a war in terms of lives, but at a time when there just isn't enough of the fortune and energy of the country to go around. And it shows.