A Few Gallons of Compassion

The conflict in Iran has driven oil prices from around $60 a barrel to over $100, and those costs roll downhill fast. Gasoline, diesel, heating oil, and natural gas rise almost instantly. Groceries, airline tickets, and anything shipped to market follow more slowly. Inflation climbs. For many Americans, a jump at the pump is frustrating but manageable — we grumble, we swipe our cards, and our routines continue unchanged. For others, it becomes a genuine financial crisis.

Those who suffer most are those least able to adapt: people living paycheck to paycheck, small business owners keeping work trucks on the road, families balancing gasoline, groceries, rent, and daycare while trying to hold their lives together one week at a time. Self-employed farmers don't care about record stock markets — they care about the cost of diesel and fertilizer they pay directly out of pocket. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Americans have collectively spent roughly $45 billion more on gasoline and diesel since the conflict began, while investors in oil-and-gas companies watch their portfolios grow. The burden and the benefit fall on very different people.

I don't want to add another political argument to the noise surrounding this crisis. Instead, I find my thoughts drifting to a moment I witnessed during the gasoline spike of 2008 — when prices climbed to levels that, adjusted for inflation, remain among the highest Americans have seen in modern times.

I was living in Mansfield, Massachusetts, and stopped at a gas station one afternoon to fill my car. A young woman pulled into the space beside me, driving an older car that had clearly seen difficult years. In the back seat was a toddler in a child seat. I overheard her ask the attendant for two dollars' worth of gasoline. Even in 2008, that was less than half a gallon.

Artemis II and the Search for Meaning and Purpose

Something was striking about the public reaction to the ten-day Artemis II mission around the moon. People were genuinely engaged—watching closely, discussing it, and following each development with anticipation. Yet for those of us who lived through the early years of the space program, a quiet question lingered beneath the excitement: haven't we done this before?

We orbited the moon in the 1960s. We landed on it and returned safely. So why does a mission that retraces those steps stir something so deeply again?

The answer lies not in the technology but in what it represents. When John F. Kennedy committed the nation to reaching the moon, he did more than set a goal. He gave a generation direction. That single objective reshaped science and engineering and, more importantly, instilled in people a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves. It was not merely an engineering challenge. It was a statement of purpose.