Our local communities deserve people and organizations that are willing to give of their time and resources to bring science awareness and literacy to the public. The Wright State Astronomy Club is doing that work, and though we wish others here would join us, we do not hold our breath.
If it is true that the city of Dayton is somehow "dying" as claimed in recent years by Forbes magazine, it is not due simply to some minor problem with our economy. I believe that when we abandon both our capacity for higher intellect and much needed critical habits of thought, we become 1) helplessly dependent on those who possess money and power and 2) more nationalistic and violent in our ignorance of our surroundings. If one reads the daily local newspaper, one can see abundant evidence of both of these conditions here, and it is getting much worse with each passing day.
We who love science, I think, have an obligation to make the effort to bring our local communities and our nation back to the use of the mind to peacefully explore our world and resolve conflict. We need to make fists, knives, guns, and missiles obsolete. Our club's resources and time may be very limited, but we are doing what we can.
Nichole and Kennedy, thank you for your help this weekend. You are now part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
In the new Star Trek movie, Captain Christopher Pike says to the young James Kirk, "Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved eight hundred lives, including your mother's - and yours. I dare you to do better." The Wright State University Astronomy Club has brought astronomy directly to the lives of a significant percentage of Dayton's populace. Today I dare another local organization with the word "astronomical" in its name to do better.
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