What's New Friday January 2, 2008

WHAT’S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 2 Jan 08   Washington, DC

1.  BIRTHDAY?  NO ONE EXCEPT YOUR ASTROLOGER CARES.
Unless you’re being carded, no one even asks (I haven’t been carded in 
some time).  But as Richard Dawkins likes to point out, Jesus of Nazareth 
and Isaac Newton share the same birth date – except they don’t.  The 
British insisted on sticking with the old Julian calendar long after 
everybody else had switched to the Gregorian, which would put Newton’s 
birthday on January 4.  As for Jesus of Nazareth, assuming he represents 
an actual historical figure, it’s anybody’s guess.  December 25 was picked 
by the early Church either to coincide with the Roman feast of Saturnalia, 
which kept moving, or the Winter solstice, but they managed to miss even 
that by four days.  In any case, birthdays are just a way of keeping score 
and an excuse to have a party.  Like who needs an excuse?  In any case, WN 
readers agreed almost unanimously that we should commemorate the birth of 
Jesus and Newton by comparing their impact, and so we shall, starting next 
week.

2.  OATH OF OFFICE: HUMANISTS OBJECT TO "SO HELP ME GOD." 
On Tuesday, a humanist group filed a complaint in U.S. District Court 
meant to block prayer at the swearing-in of President-elect Obama.  Chief 
Justice John Roberts Jr. will administer the oath at the January 20, 2009 
ceremony.

 3.  MADOFF: PICAWER FOUNDATION CEASES GRANT MAKING.  
According to Science magazine, the Picawer Foundation announced last month 
that it would "cease all grant making effective immediately." This after 
20 years of operation.  The Picawar Foundation endowment was managed by 
Bernard Madoff who is now charged with operating a Ponzi scheme.   Since 
its inception in 1989, Picawer had distributed more than $268 million in 
grants.  

4.  NASA: A HOPELESSLY OLD-FASHIONED VISION OF THE FUTURE.
In discussing NASA’s future on Tuesday, the NY Times was mesmerized by 
the "gap" between the end of the shuttle and the launch of a new bus to 
transport astronauts.  Forget the damn gap.  The 21st Century will be 
focused on planets around other suns, and on the bad news about what’s 
happening to our own planet.  Astronauts can’t go to other stars, but we 
can build better telescopes and get a better look at them.   Astronauts 
will be no help either in studying our own Sun and our own planet, Earth.  
We need to finish what we set out to do a decade ago, but were stopped 
from doing by the Bush administration: launch an updated Deep Space 
Climate Observatory.  There is still time, but we urgently need to get 
started.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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