We're number 14! WE'RE NUMBER 14!, WE'RE NUMBER 14!!!!

I joyfully recall my daughter's cheer-leading camp comp- etition finale at the end of a hard week of cheer practice. The cheer leaders and their proud parents anxiously waited as the final results were about to be announced:

"In 14th place... THE DUNLAP HORNETS!"

Screams and cheers erupted as the Dunlap Hornets could hardly contain themselves. "We're number 14! WE'RE NUMBER 14!" ... and so it went as the number 13 squad and number 12 squad also erupted with wild cheers after their pronouncement... all down to (drum roll) the number 1 squad!

Everyone was so happy.

Well, get ready America! It should come as no surprise how excited we all were when the United States won the prize as... (drum roll) THE NUMBER 14th HAPPIEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!

Oh sure, Norway was the happiest country but the word is out... they cheat. Denmark (with Hans Christian Anderson making everyone smile), Iceland (how cold is that?), Switzerland (one word: the Alps), Netherlands (who could be happy in wooden shoes?), Canada (Canada?), New Zealand (Kiwis make them happy), Australia (with the cutest koala bears in the world), Sweden (yah, Sveden), Israel (where it's cool to be kosher), Costa Rica (si si, senor), Austria (the proud home of Amadeus Mozart and who doesn't love Sound of Music), the United States of America (we're number 14! YESSS!) and Ireland (they must have seen a snake).

So how is it that the richest country in the world that boasts more guns per capita (87 per 100 people), the brightest pencil in the box president, a congress that speaks its mind, not yours, the widest gap between the richest one-percent and all the rest of us, trickle down economy that wants those rich to get richer because it's good for us, the poor who benefit the most from trickle down (those lucky-stiffs), the NRA, the Koch brothers and Russia that help us decide what we think, the most school shootings in all the world, the home of the AR-15, semi-almost background checks to own a gun, young people who can buy a gun but can't drive a car without a license and the greatest difference between red and blue, can't be happier?

Beats me.

Both are unbelievable but one is true, one is false. Any guesses?

We were thrilled when Henry bicycled across the moon with ET in his bike basket.

 We were also thrilled (sort of) when the red Tesla streaked past the earth on it's way past Mars.

OK, everyone knows ET will never reach home in the basket of Henry's bicycle. But could a red Tesla ever speed past Mars, with David Bowie's Space Oddity blasting on its audio device, and drive forever into space? Most incredibly amazing, it could. That IS an actual photo you're looking at.

Is there anyone today more interesting and inventive that Elon Musk? Truly this South African born

Elon Musk

Canadian American billionaire at age 48 has done more than even the best fiction writer could imagine... but it's true. He founded Xcom which became Infinity which bought PayPal which was bought by ebay. He founded the automotive company that developed the Tesla automobile and founded SpaceX which developed the most powerful rocket booster that put his red Tesla with a manikin driver behind the wheel into space forever. Even more astounding, two of the three rocket boosters on the most powerful rocket actually returned to base, landing as if reverse of the take-off. Take that NASA.

So his failure is that the space-bound Tesla that was supposed to land on Mars but missed, is destined to drive forever, at 25,000 miles per hour, into outer space for infinity. It joins with NASA's two Voyager missions to infinity. Imagine the incredible gas/electric mileage per gallon and what would happen if it was ever pulled over for speeding by an alien patrol officer with radar. "Sorry officer, I was running late for Mars so I stepped on it and didn't realize how fast I was going."

Consider that perhaps, eons from now, a distant civilization will encounter both Voyager spacecrafts with their golden records of us saying 'Hello" in 140 different languages and also the Tesla playing David Bowie's Space Oddity and wondering who in the hell those people are/were.

Well, that's space for you.