PENN STATE DID NOT CELEBRATE CARL SAGAN DAY!!!

[Fat Man]

OK, this evening I was doing a Google search on universities across the USA where people celebrated Carl Sagan day.

Of course, not all celebrated on November 9th which is his 77th birthday. Some celebrated a few days earlier and one will celebrate tomorrow on the 12th of November.

I can't find a complete list. Perhaps later on a list will be compiled.

Anyway . . . . . here is what I found so far.

Broward College: North Campus in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The third annual Carl Sagan Day will take place on Saturday, November 12, 2011

Oakland University

Collin College

Northwestern University of Chicago

Cornell University (Naturally, because that's where Carl Sagan studied and got his PhD.)

Bronx Community College (Naturally, because Carl Sagan grew up in Brooklyn New York.)

University of Minnesota

Dartmouth College

Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids Michigan


In some places snacks and drinks were served.

At one campus, the participants baked apple pies from scratch, because, in one of the 13 episodes of COSMOS, Carl Sagan said "To bake an apple pie from scratch, one must first invent the cosmos!" because, when the universe started over 14 billions years ago from The Big Bang, when the first galaxies and stars were formed, the only elements that existed back then was only hydrogen and helium. There were only stars, but no planets yet. Heavier elements were needed for planets to form. That came a few billion years later.

The heavier elements were formed when many stars exploded as super-novas, thus fusing the lighter elements into heaver elements. When these massive stars exploded, the heavier elements were scattered out into space from which new stars formed, and these newer stars would have planets.

So now, the nebulous clouds in all the galaxies is a kind of a soup of still mostly hydrogen and helium, but it is delicately seasoned with heavier elements, including iron all the way up to uranium. The second generation of stars a few billion years later had formed from nebulous clouds of hydrogen containing the heavier elements. Then solid planets could form from those newer elements.

Our sun is a third generation star which formed about 4.5 billion years ago, or 10 billion years after The Big Bang. So, we're actually newcomers, the new kid on the block, cosmically speaking.

Anyway . . . . .

Carl Sagan day was also celebrated in some coffee houses and bars.

WOW! Imagine sitting in a bar in some city, having a couple of beers and something to eat, and watching COSMOS on a big screen TV instead of sports!

So, all across the USA, in many universities and colleges campuses, Carl Sagan day was celebrated.

BUT NOT IN PENN STATE!

Yes, Penn State does have an Astronomy and Astrophysics department.

But Penn State was disrupted, by student sports fans, rioting in the streets, protesting and overturning vehicles, all because their hero, Joe Paterno, some low-life scum-bag football coach got fired, because he knew that for nine years, assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky had sexually molested children, and he never reported it, until now.

So, because of the rioting on campus, it probably was not possible to celibate Carl Sagan day at Penn State University.

Yeah, like, it's not bad enough that the quality of education in our high schools have been steadily declining over the decades, but now, even some of our universities, our institutions of "higher learning" are beginning to turn into glorified Kindergartens, thanks to all these bed-wetting ignoramuses on campus who don't give a shit about academics, and only care about football.

They didn't even care that innocent children were being sexually molested by assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. No they were all pissed off because their hero, Joe Paterno got fired for not reporting it sooner.

So, under the circumstances, there was no way Carl Sagan day could have been celebrated at Penn State University.

Thanks a lot, ya morons!

Way to go!

[Northern Mike]

Good evening Fat Man,
The apple pie comment is one of many things that sticks with me, years after seeing Cosmos. I think a great part of Carl Sagan's brilliance was his ability to use media to illustrate often hard to understand concepts, and to make us think about simple things in a whole new way.