What's New Robert L. Park 9 Sep 2011

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L Park   Friday, 2 Sep 11   Washington, DC

1. BACK TO WORK: SORRY, I'VE BEEN UNDERGOING REPAIRS.
Here's a little of what happened while I was away.

2. FIRST AMENDMENT:  TEXAS GOVERNOR CONVENES A CHRISTIAN REVIVAL.
Rick Perry led a prayer meeting of 30,000 evangelical Christians in a=20
Houston football stadium last month, calling on Jesus to guide us out of=20
our national travail.  It was billed as non-political.  I suppose that's=20
possible; under the First Amendment God is not excluded from politics, bu=
t=20
if Perry wants to be President he's got to be able to negotiate at every=20
level.  The big question then is, how did God respond?  It didn't take lo=
ng=20
to get an answer.  The crowd had scarcely left the stadium when God set=20
Texas on fire.  It=92s still burning.  In fact, when God sent Tropical St=
orm=20
Lee ashore he had it it dump record rains on the other Gulf states, while=
=20
leaving Texas parched.  This is not a good sign.
 =20
3. EARTHQUACKS: IT'S TIME TO STOP BEHAVING LIKE ANIMALS.
At the urging of a 5.8-magnitude earthquake centered in Northern Virginia=
,=20
thousands of books in the University of Maryland Library sought a lower=20
energy configuration, moving from the bookshelves to the floor.  =20
Meanwhile, according to the Washington Post, ABC, and NBC, high-strung=20
inmates at the National Zoo like orangutans began to screech and scramble=
=20
to higher perches "minutes before" seismographs sensed anything.  Like=20
maybe they had some special sense that humans don't?  Or so the media=20
reported. Were reporters already at the zoo waiting for a quake?  Zoos ar=
e=20
always in turmoil.  Inmates chase each other, fornicate and have food=20
fights, except the laid-back types like pandas that just sit on their ass=
=20
through it all munching bamboo.

4. DEFEATING OURSELVES: NASA FACES A SHORTAGE OF TELESCOPES.
It was a famous victory.  Shaken by the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik, th=
e=20
US created NASA to wrest the lead in space from the Soviets.  And so, 42=20
years ago, NASA did.  The moon landing was political theater at its best.=
=20
The Soviet Union is long gone; we are now at war with ourselves -- and=20
losing.  The real victories were the exploration of the solar system, and=
=20
the creation of an amazing array of space technologies, ranging from=20
communications satellites and global positioning systems, to the Hubble=20
space telescope, which inspired a generation of the world's youth to stud=
y=20
cosmology.   =20

5. THE WEBB TELESCOPE: LET'S NOT LOSE THE NEXT GENERATION.
In July a House panel voted to stop building NASA's James Webb Space=20
Telescope, the far more powerful replacement for the Hubble.  Webb fell=20
victim to budget overruns. Yesterday a report commissioned by NASA says=20
that with 59 on board the agency faces a dire shortage of astronauts.  Wh=
at=20
do astronauts do these days?  Well, they train on the Russian Soyuz=20
spacecraft to deliver supplies to the International Space Station, which =
we=20
don't own.   And what do we get from the ISS?  The garbage and human wast=
e=20
accumulated since the last delivery.    =20

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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