College has been oversold. It has been oversold to students who end up dropping out or graduating with degrees that don't help them very much in the job market. It also has been oversold to the taxpayers, who foot the bill for subsidies that do nothing to encourage innovation and economic growth.
When Hubble was launched, it became clear very shortly thereafter that there was a problem with the optics.The mirror was not quite the right shape. And the one program that I had really been looking forward to doing with Hubble was studying outer planets in our solar system, the planets Uranus and Neptune.
We had been frightened of atomic weapons since 1945. In those days I became convinced - and remain convinced now - that, after Hitler, Truman was the greatest murderer in the world.
But they had, perversely, been living among people who were peering into the wrong end of the telescope, or something, and who had convinced themselves that the opposite was true - that the world had once been a splendid, orderly place...and that everything had been slowly, relentlessly falling apart ever since.
Hubble is very close to my heart, and going back to Hubble, because I was there once already in 1993, is really a great privilege for me.
When I first went to Hubble, as an astronomer and as a scientist, it was a dream come true. And as an astronaut, the Hubble missions are premiere missions because Hubble is so important to science, so important to humanity, that it's just a very special event. But as an astronomer, it was sort of the holy grail of missions.
I thought of the people before me who had looked down at the river and gone to sleep beneath it. I wondered about them. I wondered how they had done it--it, the physical act. I simply wondered about the dead because their days had ended and I did not know how I would get through mine.
Hubble knows there is interesting stuff out there, but Hubble isn't quite big enough.
As teenagers, Marcus had been the muscle and Jake the brains. Marcus had beat up the kids who'd made fun of skinny Jake; Jake had convinced teachers not to punish him. Since then, Marcus had grown a brain (kind of) and Jake had developed muscles. But habits die hard.
It was a sort of peace I have rarely enjoyed since. As if we were the only two souls on earth—all of nature ours to enjoy. I wondered why a creator who had dreamt such beauty would have slandered it with such evil. Such grief. Why He had not been content to leave it unspoilt. I still wonder.
I had an emotional breakdown since I really had no idea what diabetes was all about. I wondered, 'why me?' Then I asked myself, 'why not me?' and realized that I might be able to help other kids with diabetes.
With correction, and given the chance, 'Terra Nova' can and will deliver seasons of transcendent images and story-telling. Failing to renew 'Terra Nova' is shortsighted, as myopic as it would have been to scrap the Hubble. 'Terra Nova' is the Hubble Telescope of television.
There once was a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world.
When I was sworn in as Mayor of Nashville back in 1991, I have to admit to you that I felt for several weeks like a bit of an outsider who had somehow taken over but didnt really belong in this nice palace. I secretly wondered if the real mayor would come back from vacation one day and call the police.
I had long wondered," Lan said to Tam. "About the man who had given Rand that heron-marked blade. I wondered if he had truly earned it. Now I know." Lan raised his own sword in salute.
I'd been convinced I was on the outside, but really, I'd always been within arm's reach. All I had to do was ask, and I, too, would be easily brought back, surrounded and immersed, finding myself safe, somewhere in between.