It's Jerry Springer's world...

...and we're all just living in it.

That was my first thought when I woke up this morning and saw Clint's most recent post. Of course, I did some research of my own, as well:

Astronaut accused of attempted murder

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters)–A married U.S. astronaut was accused of attempted murder and trying to kidnap a rival for another astronaut's affections on Tuesday, and held in jail.

U.S. Navy Capt. Lisa Nowak, who flew on the space shuttle Discovery last July, drove 950 miles from Houston to Orlando—wearing diapers so she wouldn't have to stop to urinate—to assault a woman she considered competition for the affections of a male astronaut, police said.…

Nowak went to Orlando airport around midnight on Sunday night, waited for Shipman's flight from Houston to arrive and then followed Shipman to the parking garage armed with pepper spray, a steel mallet and a BB gun, police said.

She also carried black gloves, a folding knife with a 4-inch (10-cm) blade, rubber tubing and trash bags, police said.…

In [her] statement, Nowak described her connection to male astronaut Bill Oefelein as "more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship."…

In a search of Nowak's car, police…discovered a letter describing how much Nowak loved Oefelein, e-mails from Shipman to Oefelein and directions to Shipman's house.

Now, like Clint, I also wanted to be an astronaut when I was growing up and I have the same sort of halo effect around them: astronauts are cool, unflappable men and women who are like unto deities walking the earth when they're not actually soaring above it. To have one of them acting like she should be up on Jerry Springer's stage attempting to rip the blouse off the "ho" who's been "[bleep]ing around with her [bleep]ing man" has really shaken my faith in humanity.

One of the other things that really gets to me: look at those two photos up there. Hell, look at the entire slideshow. That picture up there on the left is the portrait of an attractive, successful, well-educated middle-aged woman who went over the edge because of a man. I mean, come on…haven't we as a society grown past the whole Fatal Attraction myth of successful psycho-harpies?

I don't know…when someone who looks like that, has an amazing job and who, just last summer, seemed like a reasonably well adjusted human being becomes so unhappy that she chucks everything—her marriage, her career, her sanity—to go on some kind of crazylove-fueled vengeance quest when there must be a couple hundred-thousand guys—including me—who would be thrilled and honored just to go on a date with her? I'm obviously missing something, somewhere, because I just don't get it.

I also, for some reason, worry very much about her teen-aged son. I mean, it's weird enough to be at that age where you're learning about sex and it's weirder still when you come to that realization that it's something your parents must do, but to add the image of your mom racing like a bat down I-10, marinating in her own piss for a thousand miles so she can off the competition in her extra-marital affair? Nightmares, man. Nightmares.