September & October
Sharon Christa McAuliffe was an American teacher and astronaut from Concord, New Hampshire, who was killed on the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L where she was serving as a payload specialist.
The untold story of a national trauma—NASA’s Challenger explosion—and what really happened to America’s Teacher in Space, illuminating the tragic cost of humanity setting its sight on the stars.
You’ve seen the pictures. You think you know what happened. You do not.
On the morning of January 28, 1986, NASA’s space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after blasting off from Cape Canaveral. Christa McAuliffe, America’s “Teacher in Space,” was instantly killed, along with the other six members of the mission. Right? Wrong.
A must read. I remember clearly when this happened and how horrific it was.
This was my September NonFictionNerds read.
I appreciate that her husband shielded himself and their children, even to this day from the media. He did lend a few statements that are just what Christa would have wanted in my opinion…
“I think she would be in the forefront of an effort to teach young people civics, history and critical thinking. Americans could use a remedial course in basic civics. You can’t expect citizens to value and protect our form of government -separation of powers between the three branches of government- and military must always be under civilian control- if they barely understand it.”
Highly recommend this.
Separated: Inside An American Tragedy
Jacob Soboroff
Donald Trump’s most infamous decision as president, to systematically separate thousands of migrant families at the border, was in effect for months before most Americans saw the living conditions of the children in custody at the epicenter of the policy. NBC News and MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff was among the first journalists to expose the truth of what their lives were like on the inside after seeing them firsthand. His widely shared reports in June 2018 ignited public scrutiny that contributed to the President reversing his own policy by Executive Order, and earned Soboroff the Cronkite Award for Excellence in Political Broadcast Journalism and the 2019 Hillman Prize for Broadcast Journalism.
In Separated, Soboroff weaves together his own experience unexpectedly covering this national issue with other key figures in the drama he met along the way, including feuding administration officials responsible for tearing apart and then reuniting families, and the parents and children who were caught in the middle. He reveals new and exclusive details of how the policy was carried out, and how its affects are still being felt.
Today, there is still not a full accounting of the total number of children President Trump ripped away from their parents.
Gut wrenching must read.
Just breaks your heart.
Both of these horrific events/things are examples of presidents wielding their power in a way that is so selfish and evil and spun so that no one sees it for what it is. A political move with zero regard for life outside their own. Blood on their hands. For this and so much more…….
