Houston, New York and the Wooden Space Shuttle: ‘I can’t wait slap that smug grin off Schumer’s face’
Would it really be such a bad thing if Houston declared war on New York?
Sometimes, the Eastern home of many things loud and haughty is so far up itself that one cannot readily distinguish top from bottom. A little Texan governance might, for a while, persuade New Yorkers to become more in touch with down-home realities.
I mention this dream because Houston, which managed the Space Shuttle program for 3 decades, is being given a wooden replica of a space shuttle, while that great home of spaced-out blarney in the East will enjoy the real thing, the space shuttle Enterprise.
This skirmish for a meaningful souvenir of the Space Shuttle program has been going on for some time. As KTRH Radio in Houston reports, last summer New York Senator Charles Schumer offered Houston an astoundingly snooty putdown on the issue.
He said: “I say to the people in Houston, when people all around the world in London and Tokyo and Paris say ‘Gee, I can’t wait for my trip to Houston’, then you can have a shuttle.”
There might be one or two people in Houston who are currently thinking: “Gee, I can’t wait for my trip to New York to slap that smug grin off Schumer’s snide little face.”
Houston is attempting — as only Houston can — to put a brave and decent face on something that is sitting very deep in Houstonian craws.
It is this weekend holding welcoming party for its wooden shuttle — a “Shuttlebration.” Yes, a marvelous extravaganza where, no doubt, the beer will flow in an attempt to help locals forget that they are looking at an effigy.
Texas Congressman Pete Olson told KTRH that the decision not to give Houston a real shuttle was “a slap in the face. Pure politics.”
Surely he means impure politics.
