After a two-and-a-half year hiatus, America resumed manned spaceflight yesterday morning with a picture-perfect launch of space shuttle Discovery. You’d think that would be a fairly big deal, wouldn’t you? I certainly did. However, when I tuned into my 10 o’clock news last night, the lead stories were about an Amber Alert in the Sugarhouse area and a legal decision involving the goofball who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart. Yes, that’s right: instead of the cool video footage I hoped to see from Discovery‘s new external-tank-cam, I found myself looking once again at Utah’s overexposed ambassador of sticky namby-pambiness, Elizabeth’s father Ed. I wanted to scream. In fact, I think I may have, very quietly so as not to wake the S.O. in the other room. Ed Smart has that effect on me.

Now, I’m not saying these missing-children stories aren’t important, and I’m not naive enough to believe that everyone shares my interest or belief in the relevance of spaceflight. But I do believe our media’s choice of lead stories says something about where our culture is at right now, psychologically speaking, and it’s not a place I find particularly inspiring. Instead of looking upwards, we’re looking inwards. Instead of can-do optimism and a spirit of adventure, we feel fear and anxiety. And instead of celebrating what human beings can accomplish through pluck and applied intelligence, the news wallows in sensational stories about all the bad things that happen to little blond girls. (They’re always blond, have you noticed? You’d think that nothing ever happens to brunettes, redheads, or — gasp! — little-girls-of-color!)

I don’t know about you, but I personally find this a pretty damn depressing state of affairs. More later…