Monthly Archives: April 2006

call your representative, demand a debate

The time has come to open the debate on Iraq again.  How?

With 218 signatures on a petition called House Resolution 543, regular business in the House of Representatives must stop and a 17 hour debate on the Iraq war must immediately begin. The debate will require that Congress consider and vote on all amendments offered as alternatives to the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq.

What can you do?  Call your congressperson and urge him/her to sign HR 543.  There are 98 signatures so far, so we’re almost halfway there already.  (Deb, your rep already signed.  Yay!)  I’m calling Susan Davis today, and if you know me you know how much that means.

brother astronomer

What do you call a Jesuit brother who was trained at MIT, splits his time between Italy and the (oxymoronically named) Vatican Observatory in Arizona, and wrote a well-received amateur astronomy book?  You call him Guy Consolmagno, apparently, or Brother Guy.  I just heard a fascinating interview with him on CBC’s Quirks and Quarks podcast, and his views on science and religion are well worth hearing.  I just wish we could hear even-handed ideas like his from the Vatican more often.