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Showing posts from November 11, 2012

Let's Stop Fighting the Same Old Issues

Carl Sagan, the brilliant and eloquent astronomer and astrophysicist said not long before his death, "I worry...that pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.  Where have we heard it before?  Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose  or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us--then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls." He did not live to see how prophetic his words would prove to be. Today, with a small but vocal and hostile segment of our population incensed over the re-election of President Obama, we see people stuck in old mindsets of fear and hate trying desperately to grab for the controls. The Tea Party wants a recount of the election.  Some extremist Republican politicians want the president arrest