New York City plagued with various strikes by public employees.

• In 1966, transit workers struck for 12 days, halting all subway and bus services.
• In 1968, striking sanitation workers let garbage pile up on the city streets for 9 days.
• In 1971, police officers refused to go on patrols for 6 days and fire fighters refused to perform nonemergency duties for a week.

These strikes involved disputes over wages, various benefits, and working conditions.

Later in 1975, New York City faced a financial crisis that was eventually helped by the federal government.

Anyway, I’m guessing that those transit workers, sanitation workers, police officers, and fire fighters weren’t demanding to be paid enough that would place them in the top 1% of income earners.  Besides back in the late 60’s/early 70’s, the top 1% of income earners paid a much higher federal marginal income tax than since 1987.

• The World Trade Center North Tower’s construction started in August of 1968 and was completed in 1972. 
• The World Trade Center South Tower’s construction started in January of 1969 and was completed in 1973.

A History Channel documentary on Modern Marvels about the World Trade Center twin towers, dated in 2001 but before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, failed to mention the 60 fatalities that occurred during the twin towers’ deadly construction.  An event in history 20 times as deadly as the Apollo space program.

Early 1968 thru January 1973.  From the Tet Offensive and President Johnson announcing he wouldn’t run again in early 1968 until January 1973, when American delegates signed an agreement around a really big table in Paris to stop fighting in Vietnam.  

Eventually in 1975, all of Vietnam would fall to the Communists. 

John Williams’ score for the 1989 film Born On The Fourth Of July

• • • • • The Shooting Of Wilson
        • Cua Viet River, Vietnam, 1968

Music that captures the horror, tragedy, and chaos of The Vietnam War

John Williams (1989), his Oscar-nominated work early in 1990

• A clueless & faithless 14 year-old.  “You must choose.  But choose wisely.”
• Ron Kovic’s encounter with Murphy’s Law

Clueless & Faithless…& Murphy’s Law.  As a faithless 14 year-old.  As a faithless teenager.  And as a faithless young adult.  A particular train wreck in my life that I’m referring to, the kind that would have helped Harrison Ford get a head start on eluding Tommy Lee Jones. 

Much of it a self-inflicted kind of Murphy’s Law…but Murphy’s Law nonetheless.  Definitely a connection between the two movies other than John Williams getting Oscar recognition in early 1990.  Definitely a connection.  No doubt about it.

July 1969 through December1972.   Americans walking on the moon.

“From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon.  It’s not a miracle.  We just decided to go.”  –spoken by Apollo 13’s command astronaut in a 1995 film scored by James Horner that would win a prestigious film industry award for its director.  A film based on the true story of Apollo 13, a flight intended to land on the moon…but didn’t.

That’s because about 200,000 miles away from the face of the earth, there was a problem.

RECORDED QUOTES FROM JULY OF 1969 ABOUT APOLLO 11’s MOON LANDING

• “The greatest human achievement ever.”
• “Nothing in show business will ever top what I saw on television today.”

FROM THE BOOK “LOST MOON”

“…when stations around the globe carried Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s first tentative moonwalk and most of the world stood still to watch it.  But by the time Apollo 13 rolled around, the world had lost interest.  A little after the two-day mark in the mission, the crew was scheduled for its first TV show, but none of the networks intended to carry it.  …Viewers across the nation had shown little interest…”