Story #1: A NASA report says that at least two astronauts have flown drunk. Personally, if I was sitting on top of that much rocket fuel and about to be blasted into space, I’d need to be drunk too. Real drunk. Maybe NASA will install one of those car breathalyzer systems in the shuttle. Full story here.

Story #2: A computer due to be delivered to NASA had been intentionally damaged. The computer system was to be used on the space station. Apparently, someone has a bit of a grudge, a really bad day, something. I’d hate to be the subcontractor’s program manager delivering that news… “You know that really expensive computer system that you ordered. Yeah, the one that’s supposed to go up on the shuttle. Well, funny thing…” Full story here.

Story #3: Old story, but still bizarre. The latest about Lisa Nowak.

What Jeff Listens To — This Week is an occassional feature on my site which highlights, well, what I have been listening to this week. Pretty self-explanatory. Some of these are programs that made me laugh. Some made me think. Some made me almost cry. Some just made for good background noise while I worked. Hope you enjoy.

[iTunes] - Free download available through 7-29-07

The Opening Lines of the radio program:

Host Ira Glass: Edward was just a little boy when he was switched from regular classes to special ed. It was kindergarten. And he viewed the move as a big step up.

Edward: I thought it was cool because when you think of the word special, meaning, like, special. You know, like good. A good thing. And like, with my name being Edward. I thought it was kind of built for me.

Ira Glass: Oh, like, Ed meant you.

Edward: Yeah.

I love Act One. It’s about the interviewers from a documentary called How’s Your News?. I want to watch that show now after listening to this segment. It sounds great! Act Two scares me, but makes me hopeful at the same time.

[iTunes]

Good show this week. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald plays the game called, “We are so not going to ask you about Scooter Libby!” All questions not about Scooter Libby.

[Listen Online] | [iTunes]

I first heard about the StoryCorps project some years ago. I’ve been fascinated with it ever since. I tried, unsuccessfully, to reserve a spot for my wife and I when the travelling booth came through Austin.

If you’ve never heard of StoryCorps, I’ll let them explain the project in their own words:

StoryCorps is a national project to instruct and inspire people to record one another’s stories in sound.

StoryCorps is modeled — in spirit and in scope — after the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930s, through which oral history interviews with everyday Americans across the country were recorded. These recordings remain the single most important collection of American voices gathered to date. We hope that StoryCorps will build and expand on that work, becoming a WPA for the 21st Century.

You can search the archives here or receive a daily podcast through iTunes.

A few of my recent favorites:

“Liddy did things on her own schedule” (Thom and Karen Horsey remember their daugher, Liddy, who had Cornelia de Lange Syndrome. Liddy died from an illness unrelated to CdLS.)

“My father was everything to me” (Dr. William Lynn Weaver to his daughter, Kimberly.)

“I had never been to the circus before” (Surviving the Hartford Circus Fire of 1944)

“A car drove up late evening” (Trudy Henry tells her daughter Jan Scoggins about some unexpected visitors.)

“Who is important in your life right now?” (LeKeisha Williams interviews her best friend, Tia Williams.)

[Audio (Explicit)] | [iTunes - Audio (Explicit)] | [iTunes - Video (Explicit)]

Sarcasm — gotta love it. I know that many of (OK… most of) the stories are not politically correct or even nice. But they are certainly funny and sarcastic.

The audio and video podcasts have different content.

Favorite line from video podcast of July 26, 2007: “Nobody’s going to trade oil for sticks.”

“I would like to buy three dollars’ worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul, or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk, or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want about a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy three dollars’ worth of God, please.” –Wilbur Reese

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” — Marianne Williamson*

*I heard this in the movie Akeelah and the Bee with an incorrect attribution to Nelson Mandela. Good movie.