the cold equations

A recent conversation brought to mind an SF story called "The Cold Equations" (by Tom Godwin), considered a classic by some. I had heard of the story but had not read it (had the title slightly wrong and no author). It turns out to be Googlable; that's probably a copyright violation. But now I've read it. Interesting story (no spoilers here; I make no promises about comments).

I had previously been under the impression that one of the pivotal characters was a child (of perhaps nine or ten), not an eighteen-year-old. I found that this affected my enjoyment of the story; the character makes a mistake with consequences (not following directions, in a really big way), and when I thought those mistakes were being made by a child I had more sympathy. As it is, it's hard for me to really appreciate this character's angst. The story is also somewhat a product of its time (the 50s); the other main character makes a point of saying he would have handled things differently if it had been a "man". (Aside: she's a "girl".) It's still a good story, but I liked it better with my mistaken impressions. :-)

There was a Twilight Zone episode based on the story (the series from about a decade ago, which I mostly missed due to not having the right cable channels available). I'd kind of like to see that.

Chukat

I'm reading torah this week, which means I'll also give a short talk on the portion (Chukat). I'm not sure yet what I'm going to cover. Chukim are generally understood to be laws for which we can't really derive a reason but we do them because God says so (like the ritual of the red heifer that begins the portion). The Reform movement is based on the idea of individual autonomy, not (necessarily) community standards; do we even have chukim? Perhaps we do. (Or perhaps I'm speaking late-night nonsense.) I'll think about it more tomorrow.