I have long believed in the message of your graphic, that this is a world of greater extremes that we can imagine. It helps me to remember the extremes of the good when I am faced with the bad. Shortly after the Boston Marathon terrorist attack the words of Mr. Fred Rogers began circulating. In the quote he recounted the wise words of his mother who said that when bad things happen he should look for the helpers. In today’s horrible incident, note the brave women who interceded, who put themselves between the murdered man and the attackers, who talked to these crazed, armed, bloodied men and likely prevented further attacks in the time it took the police to arrive. I feel humbled by their heroism. As Mr. Rogers and others concluded, there are many more of the good than the bad, and that is our hope.

Also, I am going to just go with what you said: I’m sure humanities profs follow the same strategy. You raise a very valid point. I didn’t need to ace the exam to pass the course. Plus, now I feel better about myself.

(How’s my first person generic pronoun working here? I hope it’s nice and vague.)

Col Hadfield is still experiencing gravity: he’s in freefall, but going sideways fast enough that he doesn’t hit the Earth. That’s why he keeps going round and around instead of zipping off into the rest of the cosmos. Which is a good thing, because he’s highly entertaining in addition to reminding us of what you can be if you do everything right in life.

Speaking of entertaining, check out 1:21 and sing along. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLETHLv_0vk

And remember to sing along with him at 9 a.m. PDT on the http://www.musicmonday.ca site (ok, ok, I’ll be at work, but I’ll be singing in my head) when he does a reprise of this song on Music Monday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvAnfi8WpVE

Karen