2019
July
19
Friday

Monitor Daily Podcast

July 19, 2019
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Eva Botkin-Kowacki
Science, environment, and technology writer

Welcome to your Monitor Daily. Today, listen as two astronauts who have been to the moon describe the wonder of space. In addition, we’ll explore the usefulness of political dialogue away from public glare, the ethics of technological augmentation, where truth trumps threats, and the unifying power of music.

But first: Saturday marks 50 years since Neil Armstrong took “one giant leap for mankind.” Millions of people watched live back on Earth as the Apollo 11 crew made history. Now, five decades later, the first moon landing has become one of those where-were-you-when moments.

Linda Feldmann, the Monitor’s Washington bureau chief, was almost 10 and watched on a friend’s color TV in her pajamas. Mideast editor Ken Kaplan celebrated with homemade rockets at sleep-away camp in Maine as an 11-year-old. Retired science reporter Pete Spotts, a recent high school graduate riveted by the coverage, thought about calling in sick for work as a disc jockey.

Covering the Apollo program, reporters felt a unique sense of duty, recalls Bob Cowen, longtime Monitor science editor, now retired. “We were writing for our publications, but we weren’t just doing that,” he says. “We were conveying the importance of this to all mankind.” 

I have never known a world in which people have not walked on the moon. But for those who did, there is a sense of “before Apollo” and “after.” 

“The moon landing marked the start of an irreversible optimism about setting audacious goals,” says the Monitor’s chief editorial writer, Clayton Jones, who was 18 at the time. “It made my previous goals in life seem small and needlessly constrained.”


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Dalton Swanbeck/U.S. Navy/Reuters
A UH-1Y Venom helicopter with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 163 (Reinforced), 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, takes off from the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer during its transit through the Strait of Hormuz, July 18, 2019.

Listen

‘It smells like gunpowder’: Astronauts tell of their time on the moon

LISTEN: Astronauts tell of their time on the moon

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An appreciation

ABDELHAK SENNA/AFP/NEWSCOM/FILE
South African singer Johnny Clegg, nicknamed the “white Zulu,” performs in 2009 at the Mawazine international music festival in Rabat, Morocco. Mr. Clegg's music, including songs “Scatterlings of Africa” and “Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World,” has had an international following.

The Monitor's View


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
The view down can be dizzying. As visitors walk along the sheer granite cliffs in this part of British Columbia, some of the walkways are glass, a lens onto the gorge far, far below. But aside from any vertigo issues, the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park gives a taste of the dramatic nature that abounds in and around Vancouver without one having to go on a grueling adventure trek or overnight trip. The bridge spans 450 feet and is 230 feet above the Capilano River. When throngs of visitors cross it – which is constantly – it wobbles, delighting children and causing many an adult to grab for the nearest handrail. – Sara Miller Llana, Staff writer
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Jacob Turcotte and Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. Come back next week. We’ll explore whether more Republican women in Congress might help calm political tensions in Washington. 

More issues

2019
July
19
Friday
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