And now a dispatch from our dystopian future, where governments pay garish public fealty to the private corporations run by enigmatic billionaires that make their rockets. Yesterday, the city of Hawthorne unveiled a seriously cheesy monument to SpaceX, which the Daily Breeze forebodingly describes as the city's "most celebrated corporate citizen." The two-ton, 37-foot-tall replica of a Falcon Heavy rocket will be backlit at night "by 27 red LED lights emulating thrusters" and frontlit with a green glow. It cost the city $24,000. (The attached sign noting that Hawthorne is the "Cradle of Aerospace" only cost $13,500.) Sure, this is a very pathetic thing for a city to do, but Hawthorne would still be reeling from Northrop Grumman's departure (it once employed 30,000 people there) if not for the great generosity of SpaceX, led by Paypal/Tesla founder Elon Musk, which so benevolently employs about 3,500 people in exchange for only tax breaks and massive government contracts. Mayor Chris Brown is so grateful that he apparently sees nothing creepy in declaring that SpaceX is "not just a tenant, they are a partner in the city of Hawthorne."
· Hawthorne unveils 37-foot-tall Space X rocket monument [Daily Breeze]
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