We don't need to worry about life light years away

By George Frasher

I read an article about some scientists who found a galaxy some 12.3 billion light years away. The entire story left me with a number of questions. The report said this was the most distant place found in the universe, the previous record being only 12.2 billion light years away. My prime question on this matter is who the heck gives a diddly squat?

It is for certain that none of us are going to go there. It is extremely doubtful if anybody that might be there in that galaxy is going to come here. I checked once, and read where just one light year is 50 trillion regular miles and change. In other words, we are told that light travels some 50 trillion miles and change in one of our earthly years. I have no idea how they figured that out, and if you know, do not bother to try and explain it. I would not understand it, and I am not going to lose any sleep over such ignorance.

So men have gone to the moon. So they have sent a machine to Mars that sent us back pictures of that place. The moon and Mars are like the distance between Leesville and DeRidder compared to a galaxy that is 12.3 billion light years away. Multiply that by 50 trillion to get the mileage as recorded on your odometer yourself. I don't do numbers with that many zeroes in them.

Besides, from the pictures I have seen that were sent back from Mars, the place looks even more forsaken than Kansas and North Dakota.

There seems to be a fetish with some people to find someone living somewhere in the universe other than on this planet. This is also hard for me to understand. We have trouble getting along with people in the next state, in some cases the folks next door, so why do we want to find more people with whom to fuss?

We are spending ourselves into bankruptcy trying to take care of folks in other countries on earth who do not even pay taxes. What would we do if we were to find people living 12.3 billion light years away?

The stories keep appearing about folks from some of those distant places landing here in flying saucers. I am not going so far as to say there is no such thing as flying saucers. The only ones I ever saw, though, were the ones that Aunt Sidy threw at Uncle Seamus when he came home with a snootfull.

I have heard reports of flying saucers being spotted for nigh on 50 years. The first time I ever heard of such things was one night around 1950 when I was in college and working part time at the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Returning from covering a high school basketball game, the only other person in the office was the night editor. He got a report that one was flying overhead and he went out on a second story porch to see what he could see. All he saw was a dark sky sprinkled with twinkling stars.

Since then all sorts of folks have reported seeing them. My question is where are they. Nobody ever took a picture of one. If any sort of human beings were navigating them, it is almost certain at least one of them would have crashed or run into one another.

Some folks have even said they were taken aboard a flying saucer and examined. It is interesting to note that this rash of UFO sightings coincide with the great increase of inhaling and shooting strange concoctions into the bloodstream and smoking funny cigarettes. When folks were satisfied with just John Barleycorn, the most they saw were a lot of snakes, pink elephants and six-foot bunny rabbits named Harvey.

Even when scientists admit they have not found any life elsewhere, they say that studying those places in far-off places in the universe can give us some idea of how life started on this planet, or how it will end. It seems it would be much better if we spent a little time on thinking about how to get our highways and streets fixed up into passable condition.

When we start talking about billions of light years in distance, we are talking about things that are beyond the comprehension of the human mind. If those folks so concerned about how far out the universe goes would put a little more effort in figuring out how to devise a workable tax system, we would all be better off.

Some folks apparently think they have failed in life if they do not learn the explanation for every thing in creation. Maybe that is why we have so many failures.