The fact that the financial crisis began during the Bush administration didn’t help the Right either.

To be honest, after enough years of playing defense in a sea of conservatives that endlessly repeated “Attila’s” viewpoints, I think he was glad to see the conservatives go. It likely lowered his blood pressure.

I stuck with the Zone as long as I had because the conservative slant here was also futurist. You can go to Redstate or some of these other sites that have been around and the conservative angle was always tinged with a good number of bible-thumping conservatives. Obviously, with my reincarnation and beliefs, I don’t get along too well with those types of conservatives that base their views not on thought but allegiance to scripture.

So HZ was a place to hang and post with some politically like minds. Then came the old site-hosting loss, the changeover, endless promised revisions/inclusions of the old Zone and the ridiculous implementation of a password.

So the Zone is now a ghost town.

Just in the short time I’ve been back I’ve been reminded of the total pointlessness to writing up posts, here. See, I always spent 10-15 minutes on a good post. I wouldn’t post a bunch of small talk, but mostly essay-type stuff that had some meat. So, at a certain point, the Zone no longer gave me the bang for my rhetorical buck.

Sadly, this place is now just the equivalent of a few old guys bickering on a porch.

I used to bite my tongue a lot to keep people from having their feelings hurt. I don’t do that much anymore. It’s too tough on the tongue.

I fold…

Has the subject faded away or just the contributors? Probably a bit both but I think it started with the membership.

Dan, RL, ET, Phil, Greg, Larry, and Marcia. They left before the changes and while the shuttle was still flying. If this place is like a bar then I guess we must be the hard-core alcoholics. I’ve just never had a reason to leave.

I’ve accepted the fact that the Zone memebership will probably remain static. And sadly, someday it will die because “we” are mortal. Until then, let’s enjoy it while it lasts.

We lost our main resources regarding space when Robert was forced to change the format. Raoul comes to mind. If we don’t have the Raouls we won’t have Space. Where’s Kim? The Shuttle is gone now, he could come back. Jim Oberg was interesting regarding Space, a boor politically and didn’t tolerate opinions other than his own well. I can’t think of any reason for anyone to visit our “Space” board when there are other resources out there. Nick may have left with more personal matters to which to attend, I hope he’s doing well, and he was a great contributor.

I believe HZ is like a bar on Friday night. People will stop in, have a beer, look around, and if there seems to be a critical mass they’ll stay. If there doesn’t, they move on. I think they lurk, Space isn’t interesting, Comestible hasn’t had a post in a long time, the last involved rat turds on Coca-Cola, our political and economic stuff has been honed over time to be personal and uninteresting to the saner observer.

And regarding Space in general, folks seem tired of it. America’s dominance is dwindling, even the mainstream press doesn’t seem to regard Curiosity as much of an item. Remember the early rovers? We got endless weather reports, pictures of tracks, maps, horizons, a million lines speculating about “blueberries” and if a calcite turned up there were articles on life on Mars, Europa, outside the Solar System along with speculations re the philosophical implications of each.

Now, Curiosity sits in an obvious stream bed, evidence of a lot of water for a long time, and it is news for a day and then the headlines inform us of a butler reading the Pope’s mail about his “private” life (what sort of “private” life does a Pope have?) and some Republican Congressman insisting the Earth is flat or some damned thing. (And they want to run the country and our lives.)

And now it isn’t just America and Russia. The EU, China, Japan, and even India all have Space programs, none of which are at all interesting to our chauvinistic views except during the more dramatic times. We would have to be able to speak a number of languages in order to have a comprehensive Space board. And be willing to congratulate a nation for accomplishing that which we did 30 years ago.

The Shuttle and ISS sucked up money like a tornado hovering over a bank. Much that was interesting and exciting wasn’t done and won’t get done so as to keep that expensive and largely unproductive thing in orbit and crewed. Not much going on with that to generate excitement, although there are human interest articles from time to time. I’m sure I’ve missed a lot of what they’ve done, but I remember seeing people endlessly squirt food from a tube or take a picture of a Shuttle. Oh, yes, they did service the Hubble. And every once in a while someone answers a letter from a third-grader in Porcupine, Arkansas, and the crew puts on a bit of a show and tell for them.

Curiousity is the ‘star’ now, and it seems to be dim. The public has seen rovers, seems bored. I think if it discovered Jimmy Hoffa’s body it would only hit the news for a couple of days.

And in the US people are worried. The economic depredations of the Bush years are still reverberating through the economy, as houses are either underwater now or being refinanced to the point they’ll be underwater soon. Not a lot of time for some of them to consider Space.

As far as the rest of the boards, the Conservative candidate did NOT make the fool of himself everyone expected in the first debate. The True Believers have squeezed, teased and tortured out of that he’s a viable candidate and quote each other to prove it. He managed to appear to be an adult for an hour, and people are glorying in the idea that school lunch programs will be cut, thank god, we can’t afford them but we’ll send another 100,000 mercenaries over to Iraq to protect the 100,000 that are already there.

Not a lot to attract the more apolitical there.

Anyway, those are my observations on the Space Board, and other things.

It would be easy to bring this place back alive. An active Twitter feed, Facebook page would be a way to start. Space science is totally off people’s radar right now, so one would have to sell it as a “diverse” forum. But one could surely, pick up a dozen or two members with just a little active socializing. MSNBC gave birth to Afterhours which gave birth to the HZ. Members can be siphoned from busy forums.

Haha! I wonder if Don Krupp is still battling image anomalists!