Word: sagan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Moon, Alice Re your article on Mars: human exploration of the moon, Mars and beyond would restore national pride and bring purpose to our space program [Oct. 27]. If such visionaries as President John F. Kennedy, rocket designer Wernher von Braun and astronomer Carl Sagan were alive today, we probably would be walking on Mars by now. Let's keep the dream alive. Rick Schreiner, San Marino, California
...Carl Sagan, the Cornell University astronomer and author, and Richard Garwin, a military expert at IBM's Watson Research Center, have prepared a petition of leading scientists opposing space weaponry. Sagan, who listened to Reagan's speech from a Syracuse hospital where he was recovering from an appendectomy, was so agitated that he pressed to have the manifesto completed for release this week. It concludes: "If space weapons are ever to be banned, this may be close to the last moment in which it can be done...
...years ago, and like-minded communities in Phoenix, Albuquerque, N.M., and Portland, Ore., plan to start similar classes next spring. The growing movement of institutions for kids in atheist families also includes Camp Quest, a group of sleep-away summer camps in five states plus Ontario, and the Carl Sagan Academy in Tampa, Fla., the country's first Humanism-influenced public charter school, which opened with 55 kids in the fall of 2005. Bri Kneisley, who sent her son Damian, 10, to Camp Quest Ohio this past summer, welcomes the sense of community these new choices offer...
...Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer. Amr Khaled, the televangelist from Egypt, spoke passionately about young Islamic men and women who want peaceful co-existence with the rest of the world, and asked us to reach out our hands to them. Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke of how astronomer Carl Sagan had generously offered his time and advice when Tyson was just a 17-year-old from the Bronx. Richard Branson talked about how the tolerance and humor of South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu could help heal the world's divisions...
Hollywood is aggressively secular and materialistic, and it does stereotype Christians (and Muslims, single women, gay men, fat kids and, for that matter, Hollywood celebrities). But it also needs Christianity, maybe more than Christianity needs it. No one thanks Carl Sagan at an Oscar podium. The rich imagery and mystery of Catholicism made The Da Vinci Code (and its burgeoning knockoffs) possible. And while Christmas movies and TV shows may not involve many mangers, they quietly--and profitably--ratify Christianity as the default U.S. religion, as any Jew or Hindu can attest in December...