“How come there ain’t no money here? Hmm! Whitey’s on the Moon…” -Gil Scott-Heron

A fun game I like to play with my friends is called "This is happening."

The point of the game is simple: to try and stump everyone by knowing something about current events that nobody else knows.

The game starts when somebody says something that is happening right now and then says, "This is real. This is happening."

For example someone might say, "Human embryos are being baked into pies in Scotland and served to rich people. This is real. This is happening."

(A hypothetical example.)

Then if someone else is familiar with the story, that person says, "I heard that, too" then that person has to provide some additional, verifiable tid-bit certifying their au fait.

Like, "Embryo pie goes well with sake they say."

(Another hypothetical example.)

My friends at work and I have been playing this game, formally or informally, on an ongoing basis for about a year, trying in vain to come up with some story that hasn't made it onto the rest of our radar yet.

Last night we had a winner.

The winner's name: Jo Boyer.

Jo's winning entry:

"America is going to bomb the moon next month. This is real. This is happening."

Nobody stepped up with an "I heard that, too." We all just stood there like a bunch of moon imbeciles.

In the past, I personally have easily and with extreme prejudice struck down far more trivial and way less interesting entries--stories from the foreign press or community newspapers that should have easily claimed victory were it not for my relentless commitment to, shall I say, information gathering.

Missing this one set some of us to wondering if maybe we're slipping.

Congratulations Jo, and thank you for making us aware of something we probably should have already known about. And for the rest of you out there who somehow missed this story too, let me help you catch-up:

Original Story
Planning the Assalut: Why Bomb the Moon?
Protest Site (one of many)

In the words of The Pretenders, "We are all of us in the gutter. But some of us are looking at the stars."