THIS CAN'T BE SAID ENOUGH. GET OUT THERE AND DO IT!

"Where physical affection is encouraged, theft, organized religion and invidious displays of wealth are inconspicuous; where infants are physically punished, there tends to be slavery, frequent killing, torturing and mutilation of enemies, a devotion to the inferiority of women, and a belief in one or more supernatural beings who intervene in daily life." —Carl Sagan, COSMOS, p. 331


BUSH'S HEAD IS SO FAR UP HIS _ _ _ THAT HE CAN'T SEE SUGAR

"The one man who has had extensive negotiations with the Iranians, Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said to me a few months ago that Tehran is seeking a grand bargain: a comprehensive normalization of relations with the West in exchange for concessions on nuclear issues. It will never give up its right to a nuclear program, he argues, but it would allow such a program to be monitored to ensure that it doesn't morph into a weapons project. But the prize they seek, above all, is better relations with the United States. "That is their ultimate goal," he said." —Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek (Aug. 22, 2005

But will Bush be man enough to admit he's off on the wrong foot and has his total head up his complete ass when it comes to foreign policy? I doubt it. The kind of humility which leads to world peace and world respect is not within the range of the Christian, Texas, and Southern mentality which is central to the Bush league Bush plays in.


EUROPEAN SOCIALISM BETTER THAN
US CHRISTIANITY FOR FAMILY VALUES

"The USA has the lowest percentage among Western nations of children who grow up with both biological parents, 63 percent, [a recent report on marriage out of Rutger's University] says.

'The United States has the weakest families in the Western world because we have the highest divorce rate and the highest rate of solo parenting,' Popenoe [the report's co-author] says."

Why do American neocons constantly degrade socialistic foreign cultures which do so much better at nurturing and supporting families and, generally, in doing so much better at nurturing all people within their cultures? Need I point out that Bush and family are part of the oil culture, an extremely selfish and sadistic subculture within the declining American Empire? We just can't sink no lower than this. . . and him and his.


AND NOW, FOR THE RIGHT STUFF. AND IT AIN'T THE RIGHTIES

"The main product of the space program, I have always maintained, is not science, nor Velcro, nor military advantage, nor national pride, but consciousness. The Earth is mankind's home, but Earth's home is the universe. After all, weren't our very blood and bones made of star dust, composed of atoms forged in ancient starry dynamos? Was not the wheeling of the Galaxy itself—grand cycles of extinction and mutation—mysteriously inscribed in the evolutionary record of life on Earth? Neptune and Mars and all the rest, their craggy moons, and the comets were kin; surely the stars were as connected to us as our toes....

"Where's home, cowboy? Once upon a time, it was the circle around the campfire or cave. But as Soderblom says, home is an expandable concept. Home becomes the neighborhood, the whole valley, the state, the country, the continent. The Earth. And our concept of kin similarly expands—past family, past clan, past commonality of accent, class, language, race—the farther we travel. On Mars, anybody with a head, anybody who spoke at all, would be part of 'us.' I'd like to believe that the notion and criteria of kinship could continue to grow, transcending even animals and the other manifestations of the genetic code. The Solar System and the life starting to crawl through it are of a chemical piece, derived from the same cloud of star dust billions of years ago, with the same chemical signature as our Solar System has now: 94 percent hydrogen atoms by number; 6% helium atoms, 0.04 percent carbon, 0.008 percent nitrogen, 0.07 percent oxygen. Evolution started with that stardust. Perhaps we should recognize even Triton, made of the same stuff as ourselves, as a member of the family, a wayward distant relative included in the family movies at last." —Dennis Overbye in an essay, "Where's Home, Cowboy?" in the collected edition of science writing, MYSTERIES OF LIFE AND THE UNIVERSE, edited by William Shore.

When I hold my head just right and squinch my eyes at just the left angle, this is how I see the Universe, in all it's glory, and humankind's place in it—small, wondering and wonderful.