From: le@lekno.ws   
      
   Louis Epstein  wrote:   
   > bryan_styble  wrote:   
   >> Note to Louis:   
   >>   
   >> I guess my failing eyesight not only didn't spot the Dry-not-Day error,   
   >> but I ALSO mis-read your Bryant/HowardTheDuck point.  So I gather she   
   >> DIDN'T appear in that much-ridiculed film, but was instead merely   
   >> lampooned in the original-source comic book?   
   >>   
   >> As I implied, I never READ that comic, despite several Marvel fans   
   >> encouraging me to give it a try way back when.  But given the NUMEROUS   
   >> Marvel Comics ill-conceived titles [Thor, Submariner, X-Men, Captain   
   >> America and The Avengers, most notably but not exclusively], I never saw   
   >> reason to invest any effort in reading them, and thus was oblivious to   
   >> that Anita Bryant putdown you cited (and nonetheless am grateful for   
   >> your alerting us all to it).   
   >   
   > You appear to be conflating things I said with things the person   
   > who goes by Mary Jane Watson's nickname (but bears no resemblance) said.   
   >   
   >> And yep, I'll grant most of the many competing DC characters were ALSO   
   >> nearly as silly in premise as those ridiculous Marvel characters cited   
   >> above.  (Indeed, about the only so-called superhero comic which WASN'T   
   >> preposterous in premise was Batman...simply because he had ZERO   
   >> super-powers nor was an alien.)   
   >>   
   >> (And yeah, Louis, your "wet" gag should have tipped me off that the late   
   >> Bryant married a (test)-astronaut by the name of Dry, not Day.)   
   >>   
   >> SPEAKING OF WHICH:  I read about 30 years ago--in a Gregg   
   >> Easterbook-penned piece for Newweek, if I recall correctly--that by that   
   >> point back then, a mere 600-odd American, Soviet and other people had   
   >> ever been in space since Yuri Gagarin pioneered that ever-perilous   
   >> practice on Wednesday, April 12, 1961.*  (Of course, some of those   
   >> space-faring individuals--like the still-living and quite-storied Story   
   >> Musgrave** [long since retired from the NASA astronaut corps]--are a   
   >> veteran of MULTIPLE launches, but should still just be counted once in   
   >> the total.)   
   >>   
   >> But by this point in 2025, that figure surely must be over 1,000 I would   
   >> think--but despite sme effort for years now have been unable to find a   
   >> current figure.  Meanwhile, you Louis, seem to laboriously keep track of   
   >> such statistics better than I could ever muster, so I bet you can   
   >> enlighten us all as to what the CURRENT total is.  (Including, of   
   >> course, those two astronauts still stranded up on the International   
   >> Space Station.)   
   >>   
   >> So, Louis:  do you know the correct tally as of January 2025, give or   
   >> take an astronaut or cosmonaut or two?  (Thanks in advance!)   
   >   
   > Not off the top of my head...though the Wikipedes likely   
   > have a tally.   
   >   
   >> BRYAN STYBLE/Florida   
   >> =================   
   >> * Precisely a century to the day of ANOTHER spectacle up in the sky:   
   >> the Confederate bombardment of Ft. Sumpter from Charleston, South   
   >> Carolina, beginning about 4:30 am on Friday, Aoril 12, 1865.   
   >   
   > Fort Sumter's ordeal a century prior to Gagarin's 1961 flight   
   > was of course in 1861,not 1865,leaving aside the "Aoril" typo;   
   > but the anniversary event I most associate with the Gagarin flight   
   > is the one twenty years LATER (April 12,1981),when the first   
   > Space Shuttle took off under the command of John Young,former   
   > commander of Gemini and Apollo missions,who I later saw give   
   > a speech at the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention (he   
   > apparently had to fly himself there after an airline booking   
   > failed to work out).   
   >   
   >> ** Among the MANY fascinating aspects of that arguably-greatest of the   
   >> ALL the NASA astronauts was the odd fact that Musgrave was for a while   
   >> at his Houston-area home hassled by the late Margaret Ray, the same   
   >> eventual-suicide*** who repeatedly and famously dogged David Letterman   
   >> inside his Connecticut home.   
   >> *** The ever-troubled Ray calmly and quite deliberately sat down in   
   >> front of an oncoming locomotive chugging down a Colorado railway on   
   >> Monday, October 5, 1998.   
   >   
   > Not to be confused with the Washington State governor who   
   > changed her name from MargUERITE Ray.   
   > (Annoys me that her chosen name evokes the Confederates).   
      
   (To continue the daisy-chaining free-association,the Wikipedes   
   report that she once gave a science award to a future noted   
   scientist with a name very close to that of a deceased onetime   
   a.o regular).   
      
   > -=-=-   
   > The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,   
   > at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)