Issue: February 1993
Baptizing the Extraterrestrials
JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT CAN'T GET ANY STRANGER, IT DOES.
In the last issue of the FREE PRESS I pointed out an obscure article in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat (10/13/92) that talked about NASA's initiating its big cosmic search for life in the universe on none other than "Columbus Day". You see, it's not enough that we are all still karmicly suffering from the explorations of 500 years ago, but whopee!—let's keep that mentality going in a sort of thematic time warp. They used October 12, 1992 to "turn on powerful radio telescopes to listen for signals generated on other worlds".
Now my friends and I would of course support any search for "intelligent" life out there since it's so damn hard to find any around here but I'm not sure our definition of intellegence would be the same as NASAs. So imagine my surprise when I noticed another obscure little article, this time in a December '92 Press Democrat story entitled VATICAN WORRIES OVER WHETHER TO BAPTIZE EXTRATERRESTRIALS!
I am not making this up! It seems that the Catholic Church may have a new missionary frontier on its hands and the possiblility of all those heathen outer space aliens raises "profound theological questions". According to Rev. George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory, "The church would be obliged to address the question of whether extraterrestrials might be brought within the fold and baptized." The leading institutionalized purveyor of spiritual genocide in this poor world feels duty bound to carry it into the cosmos!! Will someone please tell them to RELAX!! And some of you thought that just because we elected Bill, Dan and Lynn we could give up the good fight! . . .Not!
A lot of folks are feeling encouraged by Clinton's alleged sensitivity to racism and sexism. I yearn to be a true believer also but I can't forget his insulting treatment of Sister Souljah and Jesse Jackson just a few months ago. It was a blatant opportunistic and political move. As for sexism—make no mistake, we live in a patriarchial country which is part of an extremely patriarchial world. Clinton's ability to openly and respectfully listen to Hillary is wonderful but it doesn't change the oppressive system on this planet. If this is going to be a "co-presidency" then lets make it official so her status is beyond helpmate.
But my worst fear is that Clinton has said not a word about the control of government by Corporate Amerikka. As a feminist, am I supposed to be elated and inspired because Zoe Baird (Insurance and corporate lawyer-I mean G.E.!!) has been appointed as Attorney General?? Give me a break!! We must not be fooled into settling for band-aids as we have in the past. Please, no more band-aids!! We must continue to struggle to make these fundamental changes ourselves—from the bottom up.
