Greetings loyal airmen.  Well here we are in February already and 2008 is moving along at rather good clip.  When I awoke this morning, I was still undecided on what my subject matter was going to be this week.  There seemed lots of things of interest going that might ramble on about.  Case in point, the political campaigning and Mitt Romney's truly noble decision to leave the race before a protracted contest did damage to his party and his country.  My respect for this man had only grown because of this.  I'm also delighted that my personal choice for president, John McCain, is now assuredly the Republican candidate come November.

On the other hand I could have also made some comment about the sudden rash of violence across the U.S. in the last few days, from a grade school teach being brutally murdered in front of her classroom, to the idiot who
ran into a Missouri city council meeting last night and shot  the Mayor and other officials before being gunned himself.  It seemed in the last 48 hours I couldn't turn on the TV or get on-line without some awful incident of senseless violence being reported.  My prayers go out to the victims and the families of all those touched by these random acts of evil.  And let us not forget that in the midst of this blood-letting, we were all shown video tapes of small children over in the Arab world being trained by the terrorist groups to be junior killers.   The people warping those young minds are the truest definitions of the word…monster.  No movie or TV vampire or werewold could come close to this kind of merciless cruelty.

Of course I could also have discussed the surprise and disappointing news from the Red Sox front office that veteran pitcher, Curt Schilling has an ailing arm/shoulder and may not be able to report to Spring Training as planned.  Now there is some debate between the club and Schilling as to what course he should pursue.  Surgery would most likely put him on the disabled list for the entire season, whereas playing with a bum arm doesn't seem a logical alternative.  Does it?  Stay tuned for further developments.

As I was flipping through the TV channels yesterday afternoon, in search of more information concerning Romney's exit from the campaign, I by good fortune came to the launching of the space shuttle Atlantis a mere five minutes before blast-off.   I stopped channel surfing and sat back to watch the show that, to this soul, never gets old.  Watching that magnificent craft rocket off into the heavens on a trail of roaring fire once again had me feeling like a kid, and remembering the optism that is inherent in our exploration of outer space.  As a religious person, I simply refuse to believe the Good Lord made the splendor and vastness of the universe around us just so we could ogle it through a telescope.  That is just silly.  The heavens were made for us to climb to and explore, expanding our knowledge of God and this wonderful reality He created.

When compared to the problems and woes we face on this big blue planet, the awesomeness of this endeavor dwarfs those issues immediately.  To conquere the final frontier, we have to work together a one people.  The space lab is the result of dozens of countries working hand in hand to achieve that dream.   The Atlantis was taking a new addition to the Space Lab that was built in Europe.  The next package to join that fantastic station is now being constructed in Japan.  The images above were from the last flight of the Endeavor and if you look closely at the crane arm, you'll see it was made in Canada.

The drive to explore and solve the mysteries of the universe is the greatest, most noble quest of mankind in the 21st Century.  It is one all of us should applaud and support in any way we can.   And that loyal airmen, is our log for this snowy week in Feb.   Thanks for stopping by as always and hope to see you back here next week.  Till then keep your chins up and keep looking at the skies.

Ron- Over & Out.