Oh, please—let’s all take a moment to applaud the brave sisterhood of high-altitude influencers who bravely boarded their glittery space Uber for a ten-minute selfie in the stratosphere. Because obviously, slipping into a pressurized designer jumpsuit and sipping zero-gravity champagne for the ’Gram is exactly the same as pioneering mankind’s journey into the void of space. Let’s compare: real astronauts—yes, the ones with PhDs, years of flight training, and titanium guts—have actually died pushing the boundaries of science and human potential. Remember them? Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee —perished in the tragic Apollo 1 launchpad fire. Dick Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Gregory Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe —killed during the Challenger explosion in 1986. Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael P. Anderson, Ilan Ramon, Kalpana Chawla, David M. Brown, Laurel B. Clark —who died aboard the Columbia in 2003 during reentr...

Brian Williams and Josef Goebbels   New York, NY—NBC News has like all the major networks have lost audience, revenue and credibility in recent years. Make no mistake; the days of Walter Cronkite are long gone.   When Cronkite said, “And that's the way it is.” that had some real meaning.   Instead today it’s,   “that’s the way we want you to believe it is.” It was Nazi propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels who said that,   “If you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth.”   He used the new media of the day, radio to convince the German people that Adolf Hitler was their savior.   Of course if you heard it on the radio it must be true.   Likewise Franklin Roosevelt fed Americans what he wanted them to believe in his infamous radio Fireside Chats .    Soon it was TV that took on the role of indoctrinating the masses. But in the USA they made somewhat an early effort to avoid the Goebbels style of reporting news. In r...

David Grove, Fake War Hero Washington, DC —Most true heroes I’ve met are somewhat slow to talk about their exploits to strangers. Okay, I will make an exception for decorated politicians. There are cemeteries filled real heroes. There are lots real heroes that have never been recognized for their selfless acts.  We give medals, admiration and our thanks to those who risked life and limb to save others. Then there is the valor thief who brags about dangerous missions and exploits that never happened. These are total jerks that con their way through life. They do this to get employment, trust and attention from potential sex partners. There is usually some kind of ill-gotten gain involved.  Thankfully today there are military databases that list those who have won distinguished awards that can be used to expose some of the fraudsters.  I served my country as an Army Medical corpsman in Cold War Germany somehow escaping combat in Viet Nam . Frankly the...