I have zero tolerance for people acting under the influence of stupid, people who fail to take personal responsibility for their beliefs and actions, and people who think they know me better than I do. Thus from time to time, I will share what I feel are the more egregious cases of any of the aforementioned Zero-T issues. And you may ask, why Abort to Orbit? It's one of the abort options for the space shuttle during liftoff, when they are too high and too fast to land, but don't have enough power to go to their planned orbit. So the abort to orbit, though not high enough to do their mission, but maybe high enough to do something useful. It had become a favorite phrase of mine years ago, when mighty NASA forgot they were in the vision business, and settled for a poor excuse for a launch vehicle instead of holding out to do things right. It represented mediocrity, settleing for less than you need, less than you could be. As I watched superior technology fall by the wayside (Betamax, OS/2, non-segmented processors) in favor of less than second best, as I watched elections become a choice between the lesser of who cares, as I watched absolute drivel rise to the top of TV, movie and book sales rankings, I realized abort to orbit isn't just an option, it seems to be a way of life.
I'll finish this first post with an example. I have recently completed reading several books, the most thought provoking of them being God's Debris by Scott Adams, a great read so long as you observe the disclaimers in the preface. This is a quiet book that started life as an ebook, will never reach some of the loftier heights a good book should reach, yet is nicely done. Then I finish The Godfather Returns, by Mark Winegardner, which I'm sure will soon top everyones bestseller and most recommended lists. The only problem is the book is awful. Some of the story ideas are pretty good, but the exposition is abrupt at best, a hydra headed compound sentence doing the work of a paragraph or three. After all these years, and a grueling search for "S/HE WHO WOULD FILL MARIOS SHOES" and this english teacher (professor, sorry) is the best they could come up with? Guess they just aborted to orbit.
