One of the best things about the wedding last weekend was the discussions that I had with the various Kiwis there (the groom, and thus many of his guests, are from New Zealand). Clearly they harbored (IMO) skewed impressions of "American" ways of life and thinking, and it didn't shock me at all to see that Bush has tainted our reputation the world over. Fortunately they (the Kiwis) all put their views to me in the form of questions, as in "So, what do you think about UN approval for international peacekeeping initiatives?" rather than the declarative "All you Americans backed unilateral invasion of Iraq!" etc. I felt I acquitted myself well, especially considering how late in the evening and many-Hurricane-fueled my discussions were.
One of the best exchanges was about our current state of space exploration (or lack thereof....it's a matter of opinion). Too bad the wedding wasn't this weekend. I could have used all the
Hubble-related developments from this week as evidence of the need to leaven practical exigencies of day-to-day life with the vision required to bring us discoveries and inspiration like
this.
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