Pondering Collisions of a Galactic Nature and Other Sorts, Too…

800 million light years away from us two galactic clusters slammed into each other, observed this week by astronomers on this planet who see, perhaps, in this event a harbinger of things to come in several billion years for our galaxy, the Milky Way. We may be traveling through space toward a collision with another galactic cluster.
In several billion years, I won’t be around to see it.
However, there are a number of smaller collisions that are happening around me that I am more concerned about than this time distant, potential event.

Hurricane Jeanne is bearing down on Florida after devastating Haiti, leaving hundreds, if not thousands, dead in its wake while Florida is bracing for another hit after three successive hurricanes in almost as many weeks, leaving behind about $15 billion in damages and many dozen dead. While Jeanne is bearing down, Ivan will be remembered as the storm that wouldn’t die. It continues its ravaging ways.
On the newsgathering front CBS and Dan Rather have been publicly colliding with the reality that the much covered memos casting doubt on President Bush’s National Guard service were, in all probability, forgeries.
Viacom, parent of CBS, seems to have dodged the bullet in this controversy. The financial pages and media pundits heatedly debated whether the 60 Minutes gaffe would affect the stock price of Viacom and, after much crystal ball gazing, decided that it wouldn’t. CBS News, after all, is such a less financially important division of Viacom than, say, MTV.
What is sad is that the truth or lack there of of the underlying story has been obscured by the debate over the documents – an inevitable outcome. When one part of a news story falls apart, so does everything else.
On a personal front I have been constantly confronting the traffic plaguing New York this week as a result of everyone of note coming here. The U.N. has been in session and world leaders have been descending upon our city during one of its fairest weeks of the year. President Bush has been here as most of you will have noticed if you’d watched the news, speaking fervently on our Iraqi adventure. [The presence of POTUS in NYC ensures gridlock in a one-mile radius of his physical presence.]
However, as interesting side note to the U.N. meetings, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez couldn’t attend because apparently he was having trouble getting the engines started on his plane. [I am not making this up.]
While galaxies are colliding, Kerry is colliding with the fact his campaign seems to be run by the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight – he can’t seem to find consistency and cogency of message and, unfortunately, seems to be as helpless to prevent this as those poor galaxies are to prevent their cosmic collision.
The appearance of Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Allawi in front of a joint session of Congress followed by a joint appearance with President Bush provided a clear contrast of visions regarding Iraq. Allawi and Bush were upbeat; Kerry despairing. Galaxies collide, so do global views.
In Taiwan, singer Elton John certainly collided with the local paparazzi, declaring them the rudest he has ever encountered and, in a career well covered by the paparazzi of many nations, must have been rude indeed!
Down in Washington, D.C. our nation’s capital, the newest Smithsonian Museum opened, a gorgeous building devoted to honoring Native Americans. As I was there this past week, I confronted gridlock as well as a paucity of hotel rooms. I could have stayed at a Comfort Inn in Chantilly for $677. No, I don’t think so.
Thankfully, a friend opened his guest room to me and I slept soundly in Potomac, far from the madding crowds.

So here we are, surrounded by collisions of fact, vision, traffic and galaxies and weather fronts.
Do I not remember from science that the universe is made up of colliding atoms?
Our lives are composed of events, individuals, visions, views, all smashing with each other as we make individual sense of the universe’s colliding forces.