Cross Country
A Big Moment for the Big Easy
It's normally heresy for a football coach to even imply that he might be happy that the other team won. But that's what Atlanta Falcons coach Jim Mora did last week, after his team was trounced by the New Orleans Saints, 23 to 3. "I'd be lying if I said there isn't a little, little, little piece of me that didn't appreciate what this game meant to this city," Mora admitted of the Saints' triumphant homecoming to the Superdome. A year ago, it was anyone's guess whether the Saints (or many of their fans) would ever return to New Orleans again, after Hurricane Katrina tore the roof off the Superdome and the heart out of the city. But a $185 million restoration put the Crescent City back on the map in ways even Mardi Gras couldn't, filling 85 percent of the city's hotel rooms with paying customers and adding almost $20 million in sales and taxes to New Orleans's strapped coffers. Mark that one roof fixed, 15,000 or so to go.
Advice and Consent at the Church
Which of pastor C.L.Westbrook's many hats was he wearing when giving advice to Peggy Lee Penley? That was the question for the Texas Supreme Court in Austin. Penley contends Westbrook was acting in his capacity as a licensed therapist when she admitted an affair in 2000, making their conversation confidential. Westbrook says he was acting as her minister and was thus allowed to reveal her adultery to the congregation at CrossLand Community Bible Church-and order her shunned. Westbrook says the court lacks jurisdiction over matters of church discipline and has drawn support from national religious rights groups. Cases before the court typically take a year or more to be decided, but one justice may have tipped her hand when she suggested efforts to separate Westbrook's secular and religious duties were like "dancing on the head of a pin."
The Wild West's New Frontier
Getting a 20-foot-long hunk of metal into space proved difficult for UP Aerospace last week-but, then, this is rocket science. If the company's SpaceLoft XL rocket had made it 70 miles up, as planned, it would have been just the fourth time a private firm had launched a rocket into space and back again. But the unmanned SpaceLoft XL made it just 8 miles before crash-landing in the New Mexico desert. Even so, company officials tried to put on a happy face. "It's a complicated process just to be able to push the [go] button," said UP Aerospace CEO Eric Knight. "We're very excited."
Last week's launch was the first from Spaceport America, a $225 million commercial spaceport in Upham,N.M., that hopes to be the headquarters for the burgeoning private space industry, of which UP Aerospace is a part. The state of New Mexico has pledged $115 million to help develop the spaceport, an initiative that's proving to be controversial. But the effort is going forward, and so is UP Aerospace. The firm is planning another launch on October 21.
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