25.April.2007 Earth-Like Planet A rocky planet has been discovered orbiting a star in the constellation Libra. This is the first planet found outside our solar system that is earth-like; the rest of them are more like Jupiter. The temperature ranges from 0-40C, perfect for liquid water. Could there be intelligent life somewhere in the universe? Location: Constellation Libra First rocky planet discovered outside the solar system. From this planet the sun appears to be 4 times larger than our sun appears. 26.April.2007 The planet discovered yesterday is called Gliese 581. It was not named by the Romans! 27.April.2007 I just noticed that the phenom funtwo (a/k/a Jeong Hyun Lim) has passed the 20,000,000 views milestone on YouTube. In tribute, even though I like Serious Diego better, here is funtwo playing Jerry Chang's Canon Rock. Play it to add to his numbers! 28.April.2007 NASA Press Release The new planet is actually Gliese 581 c, the "c" standing for "cool" probably! Actually, it's "c" because this is the third planet found orbiting the star Gliese 581. And who, you may ask, is Gliese? He's an astronomer who published a catalog of close stars, where "close" means less than 25 parsecs away, or 81.5 light years. This star is number 581 in the list. You can look it up! 29.April.2007 This is Ted Kooser's idea of the reader of his poetry. It was published in 1980, but I just saw it. Selecting a Reader Ted Kooser First, I would have her be beautiful, and walking carefully up on my poetry at the loneliest moment of an afternoon, her hair still damp at the neck from washing it. She should be wearing a raincoat, an old one, dirty from not having money enough for the cleaners. She will take out her glasses, and there in the bookstore, she will thumb over my poems, then put the book back up on its shelf. She will say to herself, "For that kind of money, I can get my raincoat cleaned." And she will. 30.April.2007 Howie Seago in Wilder's BY THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH Tonight, for the first time, I saw a deaf actor playing the role of a hearing person. The play was Thorton Wilder's 1943 play By the Skin of Our Teeth, and the actor was Howie Seago. As he signed his lines, one of the other actors spoke his lines. The person speaking the lines changed as the situation changed. Thinking about his task, I realized that he not only needs to learn the lines and the acting like other actors, but he has to deal with knowing his cues, often when many others have lines he cannot hear; and he needs his hands free to sign, making it challenging to hold props. It was impressive. BTW, the play is very strange. 1.May.2007 John Vaillant's Book I finished reading The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant. It's a very sad story about an eco-terrorist cutting down a 300-year-old Sitka spruce tree that had an extremely rare mutation that made its needles golden yellow. The tree was smack in the middle of the Queen Charlotte Islands off the coast of Canada, which is home to the Haida Indians; they believed it was one of them, and regarded the crime as the same as killing a chief. Recommendation: