Trip to Mars? Our priorities are all wrong
SO WE’VE sent a car buggy to Mars this week on the back of a rocket and still there’s no cure for Covid-19 on the horizon.
I pose the simple, apparently obvious question: have humans gone totally bonkers?
Imagine sending a rover to Mars during a global pandemic. Is the vehicle Covid-free? Is it?
Humanity is both amazing and baffling. It seems strange to me that we are wasting millions of dollars to investigate fanciful notions of life that lived millions of years ago on one of our planetary neighbours. Why are we funding such exploratory missions in a time when us humans can’t seem to unite here on Earth to find a cure for a deadly virus?
We can’t even agree to act collectively to find and pursue a strategy to combat Covid-19, which is blatantly plaguing our own planet and bringing about so much death and suffering.
It strikes me that if alien life forms were ever to arrive here on our little spinning globe, they would spend the first week rolling about laughing and then absolutely fleece us.
Mind you, on reflection and in jest, it seems almost plausible to me that it may be possible that certain alien life forms are already in charge of political decisionmaking in certain quarters – because the incumbent leaders show no signs of humanity, humility or empathy in this era of great crisis.
We certainly live in the strangest of Covidean times.
PAUL HORAN, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing & Midwifery,
Trinity College Dublin.
... AT ENORMOUS expense, Nasa and China are sending rockets to Mars, to see if there has been life on the planet in the past, or if it still contains life. However, the plane MH350 [Malaysian Airlines flight] that disappeared in March 2014 is still missing. What about life on Earth? DAVID SMYTH, Co. Leitrim.
Society breaking down
HERE in Melbourne we have the most troops on our streets since we were last in a war.
It appears to be the same in many cities around the world, but why? Like most people I respect the military forces and the work they do to protect us, but as with the police, I like to know they are here for me but don’t always want them around me as it suggests trouble in some form.
The use of these groups as support does suggest that society is breaking down, and not just as a result of the fear of a virus.
The majority of public uproar regarding Covid seems to revolve around the apparent loss of freedoms, but we should be more concerned about the loss of lives.
Let’s bunker down at home, respect our laws and hope or pray science can help us – and soon. DENNIS FITZGERALD, Melbourne, Australia.
Seas the moment? No!
I HEARD it implied on radio that a promotional video featuring politician Richard Bruton, inviting us to holiday at home and swim with him in Dublin’s Dollymount Strand, showed Richard having the six-pack body of a superman.
Be that as it may, when I took a stroll along that beach one Sunday morning, I spent an hour trying not to gag because of the overwhelming stench of sewage which was all-pervasive.
I was gobsmacked at the numbers of people frolicking in the water and kite-surfing with abandon, seemingly unaware of the obvious elephant in the corner of their salty room. Is it the case that one can get used to anything if you’re around it long enough? ROBERT SULLIVAN,
Bantry, Co. Cork.
Keep on smiling
WITH everyone in face masks, might we forget what a smile looks like? If the smile is natural, rather than faked, don’t worry.
In the first few seconds when we meet a stranger, survival traffic lights in our brains judge them with absolute precision based on their face, voice, body language and pheromones. If there is a sincere smile behind the mask, we will intuitively sense it.
HUW BEYNON, by email.