Inspiration & Wonder: From Universe, To Community, To My Stomach…

Are We Alone in the Universe? (Thank you Michael Wade & Execupundit.com)
Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post

“…Huge excitement. Two Earth-size planets found orbiting a sun-like star less than 1,000 light-years away…No earthlings there. But it’s only a matter of time — perhaps a year or two, estimates one astronomer — before we find the right one of the right size in the right place…And at just the right time. As the romance of manned space exploration has waned, the drive today is to find our living, thinking counterparts in the universe. For all the excitement, however, the search betrays a profound melancholy — a lonely species in a merciless universe anxiously awaits an answering voice amid utter silence…That silence is maddening. Not just because it compounds our feeling of cosmic isolation. But because it makes no sense. As we inevitably find more and more exo-planets where intelligent lifecan exist, why have we found no evidence — no signals, no radio waves — that intelligent life does exist?  It’s called the Fermi Paradox, after the great physicist who once asked, “Where is everybody?” Or as was once elaborated: “All our logic, all our anti-isocentrism, assures us that we are not unique — that they must be there. And yet we do not see them.”

(Encourage you to hit the link and read entire article.  Good.  Community and Stomach inspirations to follow below.)

Going Home Again.
David Brooks, NY Times

“Rod Dreher grew up in St. Francisville, La., a town of about 1,700 people 30 minutes northwest of Baton Rouge. He left for college and then lived in Washington, New York, Miami, Dallas and Philadelphia, working as a writer for various magazines, a newspaper and a foundation.  His younger sister Ruthie returned home to St. Francisville.  She was diagnosed with virulent form of cancer.  She was 40 years old.  The entire town rallied around her. There were cookouts to raise money for her medical care…April 10, 2010, was officially Ruthie Leming Day in St. Francisville. More than half the town went to a fund-raising concert. Somebody took a camper-trailer to the concert so Ruthie would have a place to rest and take oxygen.  Dreher captured Ruthie’s illness in real time in his blog. “It’s so beautiful to see it’s almost painful,” he wrote the night of the concert, “and so unreal in its generosity that you think it must have been a movie.”  As Ruthie’s illness worsened, Dreher’s grief would be mixed with something else. “The outpouring — an eruption, really — of goodness and charity from the people of our town has been quite simply stunning,” he blogged. “The acts of aid and comfort have been ceaseless, often reducing our parents to tears of shock and awe.”  She died on Sept. 15 this year. More than 1,000 people signed the guest book at the funeral, Dreher reported. Mike, her husband who had wrenched his back trying to perform C.P.R. on her, stood for hours by the open coffin as people filed past. Since Ruthie liked to go barefoot, the pallbearers took off their shoes, rolled up their pants and carried the coffin to the grave in bare feet.  During the wake, Dreher and his wife received an e-mail informing them that the deal for a farmhouse they had hoped to rent in Bucks County, Pa., had fallen through. They were surprised as waves of relief swept over them.  Then a thought occurred. Maybe they should leave the Philadelphia area and move back to Louisiana. “Standing in Ruthie’s kitchen the day after she died, laughing with all of Mike’s friends who had surrounded him to hold him up (‘We’re leaning, but we’re leaning on each other,’ Mike later said), I thought, ‘Even with all the sadness, there’s no place else in the world I’d rather be.’ ”

Mom’s Lasagna Recipe
Michael Symon (Iron Chef) was a guest on Paula Deen’s Best Dishes show on Foodnetwork this weekend.  Symon was cooking his Mom’s lasagna and my mouth was salivating.  So next day, it was off to the grocery store for the fixin’s.  This was a 5-hour end-to end labor of love.  Pork Neck Bones, really?  Dish was DELICIOUS.  Could not stop at 3 helpings…and the main reason why I’m up at 4am this morning.  You can watch a short video clip of the show here to whet your appetite.  Yes, for meat-lovers only.