Interesting times

Hello. I'm back.
Sorry, I've been quite busy lately.

A lot has happened in the news recently. Just a quick review of what stuck in my mind:

We had an eclipse of the moon (spectacular, last night); the U.S. shooting down of a spy satellite (impressive, but didn't someone think about the danger of toxic waste in a decaying orbit before they sent it up? Or was the Pentagon trying to send a message to someone this week?); a possible scandal erupting in the Republican nomination race around the figure of Tom McCain; Canada's Conservative government agreeing to opposition party demands for a timeline (2011) for the withdrawal of Canadian forces from Afghanistan; Kosovo declaring its independence (meaningful discussion, proper approval at the UN all bypassed, yet again...so, celebrations ensued in Kosovo, rioting in Serbia, confusing signs from various world capitals: do we understand what the stakes are?).

Moving on, let's see: we saw both Musharraf and religiously-inspired political parties going down to defeat in elections in Pakistan; a professional hockey player (Zednick)whose throat was slashed on the ice in an ugly skate-blade accident appearing before the press and marveling (justifiably) at his brush with death; elsewhere, we saw scientists dramatically increasing their estimates of finding earth-like planets in our own galaxy after analyzing new data (some said we may find earth-like planets even in the far reaches of our solar system), new, amazing life-forms (giant worms, jellyfish and spider-like creatures) found in the cold seas of the Antarctic and then today we had President Bush, on a tour of Africa, shedding his jacket dancing to the rhythms of African music, alone on a stage (too much sun, maybe?).

There were a lot of other strange and interesting items, but I'll stop there.

I was sitting in the car listening to the news this morning and for a moment I thought this really sounded like a 1950s science fiction radio program. Only it wasn't, of course.

If we all weren't so darn busy, we'd marvel at everything happening around us.