Yes, this semester I will be an astronomy student and let the history department recover its routine status. The professors will lecture and the bulk of the students will highlight books and ask “will this be on the test?”
I've ordered the text book, downloaded power point presentations from the previous year's lecture notes, and have found a place to review mathematics. I'm hoping that I will get a better intuitive hold on the subject than I did some 40 years previously. The student tools are much different; calculators that have more memory and computing power than campus mainframes did in the days of slide rules, pinch cards, and magnetic tape reels.
Astronomers have markedly improved tools as well. The Hubble and Chandra telescopes were pipe dreams for most astronomers in those days. The mission for NASA was manned spaceflight and physical exploration using un-manned probes that have paid off magically in the amount of useable data sent back to Earth.
In addition, I'm trying to make the switch from Microsoft office as my office suite to the Open Office package. I've used Word for 20 years as my word processor. Now I'm learning the quirks of a new program. I suppose it is appropriate. I very much appreciate the cost of Open Office vs. MS Office. As with MS Office, Open office will do much more for me than I will ever know to ask it.
I've pulled up old documents, spreadsheets, photographs, and other files to assure myself that they will not become homeless and lost in the change. Our current copy of MS Office is a student/home 2007 revision. The 2010 student package is available but I want something that I can load and use from multiple platforms, not just one laptop. Further, I don't want to pay for all the gaming and other unnecessary software loaded into the install package. I don't stream movies, download pop music, send photos, and don't like the defaults that Micro Soft drops into the packages. So the learning curve will be slow but it will progress.
I'm concerned at the approaching Perry candidacy. We do not, do not, do not, need another evangelical Texas governor to wind up in the White House. Perry is one of the worst possible choices for the GOP nomination. Only pairing him with Huckabee, Bachmann, or Palin would make the choice any more evil in nature.
Perry will spread all manner of lies about decreasing property taxes in Texas, about improving the job market in Texas, and about business moving to Texas. Property taxes for most citizens have increased. The “many new jobs” are to be found in fast food and big box stores. Businesses are interested in Texas because of the anti-union stance of Texas government and the availability of a labor force already destitute and desperate enough to take the minimum-wage, part-time jobs with no benefits.
There's also the matter of the teavangelical nature of Texas. They've recently managed to rewrite the history taught in their schools to all but eliminate any contribution by non-WASPS. The same education-governing body has thrown out science for religion. Perry is another of the teavangelicals who claim a direct line to a supreme being and will work toward forcing the teavangelical Christian beliefs onto the rest of the nation.
While such a shift toward theocracy may sound paranoid to those who have actually read and understood the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, those who believe that any form of religion other than evangelical Christianity marks one as hell spawn, or worse, would overturn the establishment clause in a heart's beat if they were loosed upon our nation without restraint. There is no war against Christianity in this nation. If one should develop, it will be self-initiated.
Shabbat Shalom!
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