Forgive the rant, but I had a weird encounter with a conspiracy theorist last week and it's been bothering me.

I was doing my volunteer work at the store, and this woman comes in to look around. She sometimes buys things, but not that day. So out of the blue, she starts talking about Richard Hoagland, who thinks that NASA has found aliens on Mars and is concealing evidence of this. She heard him on the radio, so that automatically means he's a reliable source, right? Then the assistant manager asks her what shade of lipstick she's wearing, and she starts talking about how most kinds of lipstick have toxic levels of mercury and lead in them. She also goes on about how evil the medical profession is; her doctors actually had the audacity to give her medical advice.

Some of my family members are in the medical profession, Hoagland has a lot of his facts wrong, and the lipstick thing is just an urban legend. I was somewhat frustrated listening to this woman, but we're not supposed to argue with customers and I didn't want to risk getting into a hostile conversation, so I didn't really say anything.

I'm not sure why this encounter bothered me. Maybe because I sometimes have a compulsive desire to correctly blatantly wrong information and I didn't do it. Maybe because it reminded me of an encounter I had a long time ago with an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist. I didn't say anything to that person either because what he said was very unexpected and I was just shocked by it. Maybe because I'm not used to meeting conspiracy theorists in person; I encounter them on the Internet sometimes, but that's different. Anyway, thanks for listening to me complain.

Have you ever met anyone who had a really weird, paranoid theory and insisted on sharing it with you? How did you respond to them?

Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins
Were launched away in space.
Millions of hearts were lifted,
Proud of the human race.
Space Control at Houston
Radioed commands.
The team below
That gave the go,
They had God's helping hand. (The Byrds)

Neil Armstrong's first step.

Buzz Aldrin describes the lunar surface as, "Magnificent desolation."

Aldrin's footprint. Yes, it's dramatic, but there was actually a scientific reason to take this picture; it was to study characteristics of the lunar soil.

The famous "Man On The Moon" photograph. This is Aldrin, Armstrong is the reflection.

This is one of the few photographs of Armstrong on the surface of the Moon (because he had the camera most of the time).

Armstrong and Aldrin after the Moon walk is over.

The Eagle's ascent from the Moon. Command Module Pilot Michael Collins took this picture. Andrew Chaikin wrote, "He would always remember the moment: all of humanity captured in a single photograph, minus only himself, the photographer."

Here's another Carl Sandburg poem that I think is fitting for the season . . .

Summer Grass

by Carl Sandburg

Summer grass aches and whispers.

It wants something;

It calls out and sings;

It pours out wishes to the overhead stars.

The rain hears;

The rain answers;

The rain is slow coming;

The rain wets the face of the grass.

Yes, I posted the same Keith Haring picture for July 4th again.

Here's a video with some colourful American scenery and a Bruce Springsteen cover of "This Land Is Your Land" as the soundtrack:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=InlR_Rxpl4I

Also, I wonder if anyone can guess what spaceflight anniversary I'm going to mention later in July.

Happy Canada Day, everyone.