Gagarin and Vonnegut

Am working at the children's hospital in Russia. Two events of notice: the anniversary of Gagarin's flight into space and the death of Kurt Vonnegut, fellow Cornellian.

April 12, 1961: Yuri Gagarin is the first human in space. Headlines around the world.

Such is the power of propaganda that I was an adult before I realized John Glenn wasn’t the first to orbit the earth.

Man rises, man falls. Kurt Vonnegut finds a new existence somewhere in the universe. I hope he's having a cool time joking around with Mark Twain.

Consider this: the same university produced Vonnegut, Olbermann, and egregious.

I won’t believe Vonnegut’s dead until he comes and tells me personally.

Speaking of life and death, today we saved the life of a premie who is 2 days old and weighs 4 pounds. Tiny changes create enormous life and death consequences. Political analogy = blog issue du jour. Personally I'm in for the USA's scandal x93.

We were just talking about him yesterday wrt a Vonnegutian moment: once I signed for my own international Fedex package. Sent the package from the U.S., left for Russia a couple days later, went to the hospital, and opened the office door to see the Fedex guy with: my package.

My Russian colleagues had been permitted to read Vonnegut under Soviet times. Why? I asked, he is so subversive. Yes they explained, but he was viewed as anti-American. Somebody slipped that one by the censors.

And so it goes.

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