Moon

7 p.m. National Geographic If you suffer from any kind of generalized anxiety disorder, you're probably going to want to take a pass on "Cosmic Collisions," a hair-raising hour that re-creates some of the most intense known smashups in the cosmos, including those that created Earth and the moon.

TODAY IS the Ides of March and a new moon. The former, since Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," carries foreboding. The latter, ritualistically, is cause for renewal. The way things are, I get the foreboding. But the renewal? Not so much. For, politically, even more than usual, the signs lead to lunacy. Take the Massa thing. Are you kidding? This schizoid, just-resigned New York congressman, Eric Massa, married father of two, lived with "bachelor" staffers, groped a male staffer and made "salty" remarks to male employees.

I'M UPSET with our leaders for allowing the space agency to continuously send up rockets or spaceships messing up the atmosphere (and don't forget shooting the moon), causing the atmosphere to go completely haywire. We the people of this planet are dealing with snow, and then it will be rain and flooding. When will you call a halt to this madness? You won't be able to live on the moon. You can't take care of what's happening on Earth. I'd like to see you stop for at least five years and get the Earth back on its feet.

Rel?che Ensemble is reintroducing itself to Philadelphia after some spare, quiet seasons with the kind of panache increasingly important as niche groups struggle to stay alive these days. Kyle Gann's years-in-the-making astrological suite, sensibly titled The Planets, was played complete Saturday at the Trinity Center, simultaneous with the compact-disc release of the piece. That's sure to galvanize public attention for a project that's been on again, off again since 1994. A respected critic and composer, Gann easily navigates the conceptual precedent of Gustav Holst's popular The Planets, finished in 1918, and a universe apart from Gann chronologically and culturally, most obviously in terms of instrumentation.

Howard L. Moon, 79, of Cherry Hill, a former Army lieutenant colonel who became active in public service in South Jersey after retiring from the military, died of prostate cancer Saturday at home. Mr. Moon went about his military and civilian work the same way: always focusing on others, his family said. "He was a foot soldier. He liked to be out with his men," said his son, Howard L. Moon Jr. As a commanding figure in the Army, Mr. Moon stood up for his soldiers. As a leader in his South Jersey community, he fought for what he thought was right and for people who weren't always heard.

The winter storm that walloped the South with snow and ice crept up the coastline late yesterday to coat the streets of Philadelphia and dump up to 9 inches on parts of South Jersey. Before the storm drifted off to sea, Atlantic City was blanketed with 6 inches of snow; Ocean City, N.J., with 7; and Cape May County with 8, according to the National Weather Service. Erma, in Cape May County, saw the greatest accumulation: 9.8 inches. North Jersey was spared. "Pretty much south of Mercer and Monmouth Counties, that's where the snow was," said Jim Eberwine, a weather service meteorologist in Mount Holly.

Why would NASA spend millions of taxpayer dollars to intentionally crash a rocket into the moon? By NASA's standards, the mission's price tag was cheap ($79 million), its timeline brief (three years), and its execution elegantly simple. But for what? Why are we spending so much money on experiments in space when we still have so many problems on Earth that could be alleviated by even a minuscule amount of strategically directed funding? As it turns out, the money we spend on astronautic exploits does benefit us here on Earth.

Something about Bella Swan brings out the sexy beast in boys - likewise their gallantry. In New Moon, the fever-dream sequel to Twilight (its official title is The Twilight Saga: New Moon), the intense brunette wonders whether a rebound beau's bark is worse (or better) than her first love's bite. At first, Bella (angst princess Kristen Stewart) gets dumped by beloved Edward (passion prince Robert Pattinson), because Vampire Boy can't trust himself around her. Then good chum Jacob (studmuffin Taylor Lautner)

Maybe someone should stick a copy of The Right Stuff into the DVD player tomorrow night on President Obama's long flight back from his mission to Asia. That inspirational movie about America's first astronauts might help Obama make a decision about the future of manned space flight. A blue-ribbon panel has told him that the future will be bleak unless more money is spent. In a recession, such an assessment would appear to be fatal. But some creative thinking might lead to a different conclusion.