If you can read this blog, why can't you whistle while eating crackers?!?

So I'm reading a newspaper article about "Five," a film about breast cancer, and I get down to the end and find the obligatory line from executive producer Kristin Hahn:

It's our way of saying, "We've put astronauts on the moon.  We've accomplished the unthinkable as a country so many times.  If we can put astronauts on the moon, surely we can find a cure for cancer."

This is one of the dumbest lines that keeps getting trotted out like it's oh-so-insightful.  And it's not; it's not at all.

Would anyone ever dare ask this question in any other context?  "Roger Bannister, you broke the four-minute mile.  Why can't you play the piano?"  "Michael Phelps, you won eight Olympic gold medals.  Surely you can also climb Mount Everest."  "Dr. Crick and Dr. Watson, if you could discover the structure of the DNA molecule, surely you could have also written the great American novel."  "Mikhail Baryshnikov, come on now; you're holding out on us."

What does building a spacecraft capable of delivering humans to the surface of the moon have to do with stopping a process occurring inside the human body at a cellular level?  And what's with the smug insinuation that sending astronauts to the moon is a childish waste of time that could just as easily have been spent curing cancer, like NASA is fooling around doodling in the margins of their notebook or texting their girlfriend when they should be studying for finals?  What prevents me from turning it around on the filmmakers?  "Geez, Jennifer Aniston, if you can make millions of dollars pretending to be someone else in front of a camera, why can't you cure cancer?  I'm pretty sure no one would miss The Bounty Hunter or Love Happens.  Couldn't you have spent your time and energy with a little more thought about the betterment of your fellow human beings?"