Joe, you make a great point: Dignity. Popular culture tends to make light of what isn't easily understood; that's why astronomers and scientists in general are the butt of so many jokes. Kim's point about "modern needs" has frightening overtones. What makes "modern" needs different from those of our parents or grandparents? Parking? Citizen's unwillingness to monetarily support learning institutions that they don't understand? Isn't curiostiy, thirst for knowledge, a timeless quality of mankind? What's next, a "drive-up" planetarium? People today are so steeped in pop culture that they seldom venture beyond it anymore, or are so burdened by the requirements of earning a living that there isn't time to expand their minds through learning. We live on a speck of dirt floating in the vast infinity of time and space. How sad that the percentage of humans who bend their thoughts beyond that speck, is so small as to be statistically non-existant. "Astronomy for the masses" no longer means education and information. It means music videos and laser shows, fictional soap-operas and muppets. The good news is that this makes club efforts towards public outreach even more important than ever. The star-parties, gatherings & other efforts of the members of all of our local clubs are the relevant elements of Utah astronomy. The formal institutions are irrelevant, ineffective, hollow. Chuck --- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
I am wondering if any other largish city has a planetarium in a shopping mall. All that I can think of off-hand are in more dignified settings,
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